The Village Hidden by Truth
by Jortalus
Summary: Kakashi and Tenzo are given a mission with an unknown motive. A missing ANBU, a pamphlet of dead war heroes, and the word "truth" are their only provided clues. The newest Hidden Village masks a secret more than thirteen years in the making. And in the shadows there hides another force; a chaotic beast with its own vile machinations. (Multiple OCs. Set after Part 1, pre-Shippuden.)
1. An S-rank Mission

**I enjoyed writing Sasuke in the Tea House, but I do regret that I chose to make it a self-contained story. I want something new to write on whenever the mood strikes me, so here is my first attempt at a longer-term story in over 7 years. Be kind (or don't, I can take it) and enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine. None of its characters, concepts or locations belong to me. Masashi Kishimoto does great work, and I'm a huge fan of his universe, so it is my privilege to draw inspiration from it.**

* * *

Things weren't the same without the team around. Kakashi had been a loner for most of his life, and right when he was really starting to enjoy Team 7, their bonds seemed to shatter apart before his very eyes. He had been unable to stop it from happening, nothing more than an observer forced into silence by circumstance and a cruel lack of perception. Ironic, as the power gifted to him by his dear friend Obito gave him remarkable insight in battle, but could not allow him to see through Sasuke with enough clarity to keep him where he belonged. With Sasuke gone, Naruto fell into a depression. Fortunately and with great thanks to Jiraiya, he was uplifted soon enough. Kakashi wondered if Naruto's eagerness to leave the village was, at least in part, an attempt to get away from Sakura after failing to keep the promise he made to her. Sakura, too, had parted from her teacher's side, instead opting to become a medical ninja under Tsunade's tutelage. _I should be happy,_ Kakashi often thought. _My students are all being trained by the legendary sannin. _He would sigh, immediately remembering that Orochimaru was not exactly a positive role model. When it came to Naruto and Sakura, he could be proud of them both. On the other hand, Sasuke was Kakashi's own failure, and he could never take back his mistakes.

Kakashi was doing well in bringing himself out of the sorrowful guilt that accompanied such a failure, though. Missions had come and gone. Sometimes easy, sometimes brief; usually both. The silver-haired copy ninja was among the strongest shinobi in the ranks of the Leaf, so of course the usual fare did little to challenge him. That isn't to say that he was the sort of man to actively seek a challenge; slow days were a blessing, providing him with plenty of time after training to read his books and enjoy the sunlight. Kakashi envied Naruto just a bit. To be traveling with such an esteemed author as Jiraiya was a splendid opportunity, even without mentioning his tremendous skill as a teacher of powerful techniques. Reading one of Jiraiya's books was what Kakashi was doing when he felt movement through the earth under his back on an otherwise uneventful day. His headband was over his Sharingan, as usual, and the movement came from his left—if it was an ambush, it had already failed, but at least the encroaching presence had been mindful of the blind spot. Kakashi hummed, closing his eye and placing a bookmark, shutting the pages and setting his reading cover-side down on the plush grass. "Let me guess; I'm needed for a mission?" He asked into the breeze.

The voice that answered wasn't startled. "Yeah, we're both up," the stalker answered, perched up in a tree with a mask on his face as if his identity were some kind of a secret. Nobody had an easy time sneaking up on Kakashi, but sometimes Tenzo liked to give it a shot. He wore the gray of the Anbu, signifying that his task was assigned by the Hokage herself. Kakashi let off a sigh, fetching his vest from its place laying against the tree beside his resting spot. Sliding his arms in and fastening it at the front, he resumed his role as an active Jonin of the Leaf. The Anbu continued, "I hope I didn't come at a bad time. According to what I've gathered, this is going to be a long assignment." Though his mask hid them, Tenzo's eyes went to Kakashi's book. "You might want to bring more material."

"We'll see," Kakashi answered in his lazy way, sitting himself up and getting onto his feet in the manner of a sloth. His head was the last thing to rise, and he stretched his arms out to either side, limbering up for the minor journey to the Hokage's Mansion. Leaning down to scoop up his book and tuck it into a pouch on the side of his vest, the powerful Jonin put one foot in front of the other, heading on his way. Tenzo dropped down from behind and then followed alongside, falling silent as they both progressed. It was rare for the both of them to be assigned to the same mission. That usually meant real trouble.

* * *

Tsunade was buried in paperwork, all but literally. Sakura was to her left at her own small desk, fiddling with a book about toxins, taking notes like the A+ student she always was. Being the Hokage took a lot out of Tsunade, but she had been through worse during any single night at a gambling house, and her current duty had a rich supply of immaterial rewards. Much better than losing everything, that is. Nobody had called her 'the legendary sucker' since she took her position, so the perks had already been worth it.

A knock came to the door, and Shizune hopped up-Tonton tucked under an arm-to open up for the guests. "Oh!" she exclaimed, wholesome eyes all bright and shimmering. "Kakashi, and uh...you!"

"We're here on business; where's the Hokage?" Tenzo asked through his mask, turning his head to look around the room. Kakashi was silently at his side, just going along for the ride.

"Uhm, over there," Shizune answered a bit sheepishly, a finger half-heartedly pointing to the heap of books, folders and loose leaves of paper that piled into a mountain of work on the Hokage's desk. Tsunade's silky hair just barely poked out at the top, like a blonde snowcap. "We were expecting you."

A hand poked through the base of the stack of burdens, easily pushing half of the huge weight aside to form a valley. The Hokage's heavy chest and unnaturally young face was then clearly in view of her targets. "Good work, Tenzo," she began, setting down her pen and setting her arms up like a temple, hands coming together beneath her chin. She leaned forward, taking on a stance of rather serious business. "I hope you're both up for this," she said with a sliver of apprehension.

Sakura's ears perked up from her studies. She turned to look at Kakashi, as well as the Anbu he walked in with, trying to be subtle about it. It wasn't her business, but she recognized the mounting worry in her master's words. It must have been something troublesome.

"I assure you that we're up for anything, Lady Hokage." Tenzo bowed his head.

"Just point us in the right direction," Kakashi added with the same polite gesture.

Tsunade smirked a bit, glad to see the willingness. Guy and Asuma were already on missions with their teams, else she probably would have called them in as well. "I know this is going to sound like a lot of trouble, but there's a matter to the southeast that needs attention." She fished through her endless mound of information, deftly fetching a single blue folder labeled 'Truth.' She opened it up, turning it toward her summoned soldiers and laying it flat on the desk for their perusal.

Within the folder were numerous pictures, all accompanied by full profiles. It was loosely compiled, like the rough draft of a Bingo Book; no binding, but plenty of dangerous-looking faces. Among those faces were numerous names that Kakashi could recognize as belonging to deceased soldiers from the third war. He reached down to lift the folder, holding it at an angle for Tenzo to share. "What is this?" Kakashi asked, his showing eye tilting toward Tsunade's grave expression.

"A list of suspects. I told you, there's a matter to the southeast. The Land of Fire has a new enemy, perhaps even a new Hidden Village." Tsunade set her hands down flat, standing up out of her chair. She was about to get to the heart of the matter. "There have been attacks on our country's soil. Numerous people in weak, smaller towns have gone missing. Bodies aren't being found."

"I don't see Orochimaru in this file," Tenzo chimed in, lifting up his mask as if it would make the pages clearer. "Isn't this something that he would do?"

"It's tough to say, but my gut tells me that it's not him this time," Tsunade replied. "It's true that since the Sound fiasco two years ago, Orochimaru has been elusive. We don't know where he is, at present, but there has been no indication that he or his subordinates have been involved near the southern border. There's a peninsula to the east of that border, a long stretch of forestland without a proper name. The attacks seem to originate from there." She rolled out a map on her desk, a long-nailed, well-manicured finger pointed to a single spot upon it, a mile or two outside the border on the southeastern edge of the Land of Fire. The stern action shook the wooden desk enough to knock a few books off their piles, sending them cascading ungracefully to the floor. Tsunade was getting better at her duties, but her organizational skills needed some improvements. Shizune was quick to make up for it, though, skipping over like a worried older sister to pick up the mess.

"You want us to investigate, then?" Kakashi slanted his brow, narrowing his eye toward the folder of names and photos in his hand. "Some of these people are dead."

"Actually, they're all supposed to be dead, but none of their bodies were recovered during the war. Blown apart, captured by the enemy after death, lost at the bottom of a lake. For whatever reason, they've never been confirmed deceased. Just in case we're dealing with a deserter who slipped away without being tagged as a rogue ninja, you should keep these files. Show them to any of the people you come across. They might be able to help."

With a nod, Kakashi clapped the folder shut. It was a bit chilling to think about the dead coming back to life, whether a true resurrection or a sudden reappearance from an uncertain demise. He had seen plenty of death during the war; what if one of those people had come back? He didn't like it, but the possibility seemed very real. "We'll review it on the way. What was the most recent town to be attacked?"

Another pointed finger, another little tremor, this time knocking books away from the other side of the pile. Shizune was on it, scampering around as if it were her only job. "Here." The position wasn't far from the border, and was in confirmed friendly territory. Whoever was behind the attacks, they must have begun quite recently. It had been years since the war; could there really have been a deserter lurking in the wilderness for so long?

"Right. We're on it," Tenzo said, another dutiful nod of departure, already turning to leave.

"One more thing," Tsunade called to the back of Tenzo's head, which promptly turned around with a puzzled, cautious expression. "This isn't the first time we've sent out an investigation." Another folder, much thinner, was produced from a stack. This one was a traditional file on a single operative. Anbu, by the looks of it. "His name is Kaine Hamasaki. I personally sent him three months ago to investigate these attacks as a top secret matter. He made it there, but stopped reporting back. Keep an eye out for him, as well."

The man in the photograph for this new file was young; no older than twenty, and even that would be pushing it. He had dark, mussed hair and a devious look on his face. He had high evaluations listed in most skill categories, though his score with genjutsu was below average. A prodigy, but not an exceptionally rare case. Not like Sasuke, and certainly not like Itachi. Kakashi took the additional folder and confirmed his mission. "Investigate the attacks, look for signs of a new enemy, and locate our missing man." He hoisted up the new file, then tucked it inside the existing trove of dead faces. "A-rank?"

"S-rank," came Tsunade's husky, sometimes-alluring voice. "We've already lost one man on this. That's why you're the only two I can trust right now to see it through. We're short on resources at the moment, so don't expect any reinforcements. Ideally, you should find the one responsible, capture him or her, and then bring them back here for interrogation. We shouldn't be taking risks right now, but this is a matter of growing importance."

Kakashi gave a nod, and so did Tenzo, though not quite in unison. "And 'Truth?'" Tenzo spoke up, noting the word written on the folder. "What does that mean to us?"

"Kaine sent one report immediately upon his arrival. He mentioned that the word 'Truth' had been carved into trees all along the border. We don't know what it means, exactly, but it's all we have to go on. Any other questions?" She passed her focused stare between Kakashi and Tenzo in equal measure, looking for misgivings. She was bad at gambling, and what she showed was clearly her poker face. She wanted to appear as if she were in control, but she had bags under her eyes that even her glamorous exterior jutsu couldn't conceal completely. She was exhausted already, and the day had only begun a few hours earlier.

Kakashi gave Tenzo a look, and although three quarters of the older Jonin's face were entirely covered, his long-time associate Tenzo could recognize it as a hint to cut the meeting off. "None," Tenzo spoke up, sliding his mask back down over his face. Sakura peeked again, but had just barely missed catching a glimpse of the Anbu's features. She cursed herself with a quiet huff when all she saw was the same clay-crafted animal visage as always. Oh well; she would find out what the man looked like someday. She was sure of that.

"We'll let you know what we find, Lady Hokage," Kakashi said, coinciding with Tenzo's lack of questions. "If something turns up, I'll send Pakkun with the details."

"Excellent. You're both dismissed. Be careful." Tsunade then resumed her previous task, lumping the parted ocean of books together like crashing waves, merging them back into a single pile.

"Good luck, Kakashi-sensei," Sakura called out from the corner of the room, giving out the well-wishes as a whisper as if she were trying not to misbehave.

Kakashi hummed with a delight that was almost paternal in nature. Sakura was still a long way from becoming an adult, and a powerful ninja, but he could see growth every time he looked at her. "Show me something new and interesting when I come back, alright, Sakura?" He gave her a thumbs-up, smiling under his mask in a way that could just barely be seen against the dark fabric.

"You bet I will!" came the enthused girl's voice, pink hair bobbing with the forward pump of her fist. She was smiling, even though Kakashi knew her heart was still heavy. Sasuke meant a lot to her, and so did Naruto. She didn't seem especially lonely, but then again neither did Kakashi. They shared that hidden desire to see the team reunited and smiling again. Hopefully sooner, rather than later.

Kakashi turned to Tenzo, then, and spoke. "Let's get moving. It's a long trip." And so they left Tsunade's office, getting a wordless but cheerful goodbye wave from Shizune as they made their exit. The door closed behind them, and they began their journey in search of 'Truth.'

* * *

**I should be continuing this very shortly. Thanks for reading, and I hope you come back in the future.**


	2. Are we the Cloud?

**Here's another chapter. It's not perfect (nothing ever is) but I'm as proud of it as anything else I've done.**

* * *

Kakashi and Tenzo left the Leaf behind without any difficulty. It was commonplace for shinobi at their level to take missions that constantly sent them away. Staying in the village for more than a week or two was almost unheard of, provided they weren't spending the bulk of the time injured in a hospital bed. One convenience of the Leaf was its ability to reach almost every other major nation by following a short, straight line. Trees absolutely covered the landscape of their country, giving any ninja the perfect avenue for fast travel. The destination for their current mission could be reached by a direct shot to the southeast. They would pass over a short land bridge and reach the lower right border of the Land of Fire; the location of the most recent incident involving the unknown assailants.

Whether it was a straight shot or not, the Land of Fire was still enormous, and the journey took a small number of days. Kakashi took the lead, firing himself off from branch to branch with agile feet, staying high in the trees while he traveled. Tenzo followed close behind. The latter had abandoned his Anbu mask and trappings in favor of a more visually acceptable Jonin vest, though he kept his signature faceplate. It that framed his strong features and thick, dark eyes with a silvery metal border. Every few hours, they would take a break from tree hopping, and that break was often spent combing through the files provided to them. The intel was limited; their only lead was the word 'Truth' and the disappearance of the man named Kaine Hamasaki. The only other clue was a mile long list of dead heroes of the Leaf; dead heroes who were now suspected of being traitors.

The journeying pair had taken refuge on a particularly sturdy array of branches. Covered by leaves above and below, the men sat on the thick arms like saddles, hanging one leg over each side. Kakashi had one half of the profiles, and Tenzo had the other. they searched for any indications that might strike an odd note. "This might be a waste of time," Tenzo said with exasperation after reading his seventh page of seemingly pointless exposition. "Why would Tsunade even suspect a new Hidden Village? Don't you think this is more likely the work of bandits, or even operatives from the Mist?"

Kakashi was reading a file of his own and skimming quickly; all of the photographs were of men or women with dark hair, but hair color was the only thing they even had in common. Age, gender, height, weight, cause of death, rank, clan; every detail was all over the place, the only real similarities seeming to be coincidence. "There are things we haven't been told," Kakashi answered in a dull monotone, as if the suspicion were already confirmed as a fact. "That's the nature of a mission like this. We'll figure out the 'truth' when we arrive, I'm sure." He cycled to the next piece of paper, setting his previous one at the bottom of his upheld pile.

Tenzo grumbled, shoulders slumping in overemphasized defeat. "You're right. I know that you're always right. Anyway, what's jumping out at you from all this?"

"Nothing yet. Sarutobi, Hyuga, Uchiha, Nara, Yamanaka, Akimichi...Every major clan has lost somebody, it seems." Kakashi paused on a random page, one belonging to a young boy named Susumu Hyuga. He looked cheerful in his photo, reminding Kakashi vaguely of Naruto's sunny outlook. Another child who was a casualty of the third war. "Somebody in the Leaf probably knows something vital about who's responsible. We're after dead soldiers for a reason," Kakashi added as further musing. He had wanted to ask Tsunade more questions; to have a good, long talk. During their meeting, he could see in her eyes that the matter was beyond her control. He opted to take the burden on his own shoulders and spare her any more grief. The Fifth Hokage had inherited quite the position, in picking up where the Third left off. There was a seemingly endless power struggle among the higher echelons of Leaf politics. The elders were no doubt forcing Tsunade's hand, driving her to send Kakashi and Tenzo on such a bizarre mission to appease the council.

"Did you ever meet this Kaine fellow?" Tenzo asked, then turned to regard Kakashi on the neighboring branch. The younger ninja set down his pamphlet in favor of laying his hands behind his head, resting against the bark of the tree's trunk. "I know the Anbu are a big organization and we use a lot of code names, but maybe you've heard of him, at least?"

Kakashi shook his head, closing his eye. "Our briefing was the first time I've heard the name or seen the face."

Tenzo grimaced a little, that revelation adding more to his apprehension. "Yeah, same for me. I know a lot of the Anbu. Even in all these years, I've never been assigned to a mission with him, never even heard a whisper of his name that I can recall. His file seems complete and he has a full personal history, but something seems unusual." Tenzo pulled out the profile for their only still-living man, looking at it from his relaxed slump. "Do you think he could be behind this? A defector?"

Kakashi nods his head. "The thought has crossed my mind, but we won't figure out much more by staying here. Are you ready to move?" The tree shook with Kakashi's standing; it was nothing like his laziness back home. Something awoke inside of him when he was on an important task. Tenzo all but resented his superior's work ethic; it was much easier dealing with the relaxed sensei around the Leaf than it was in the field.

"Sure," Tenzo replied, wrapping up his remaining food pills and tucking them into a pouch on the side of his Jonin vest. The green body armor was thicker when compared to his anbu gear, but it had a lot more storage capacity. At least that was something he could be thankful for while he was suffocating under its increased weight and tightness. He got up as well, this time appearing to be the lazy one as he stretched wide. Sleep was rare on an urgent mission like this one, but he still knew that he wanted some. Kakashi was already hopping along, so a good night's rest was out of the question. Tenzo hurried to keep up.

* * *

The site of the attack was not what they had expected. The shinobi were looking for smoke, debris, or any other sign of an intense struggle, but it was impossible to find any sort of obvious unrest. 'Attack' might have been too strong of a word for it, as it seemed more like a light scuffle in the center of town, the dirt imprinted with a great number of footprints that were more like the sign of a meeting than of a battle. The buildings were all intact and nobody seemed to be hunched over in fear, despite the sight of two shinobi walking nonchalantly into the city limit. Tenzo hushed a whisper, "Are you sure this is the right place?" It was built in a natural clearing, once covered by grass but worn down to the soil by busy feet, forming an unbroken road that passed by the front of every door. Trees surrounded it on every side but one, a path carved through to make room for a road that linked the town to others that dotted the coastline.

Kakashi nodded. "I think so, Tenzo," he answered with a hand on his masked chin. His eyes were pointed up, looking toward a stone monument in the center of the town. The whole 'village' was barely a single circle of buildings, all facing one another as if gathered together to worship the central crag. The monument was nothing more than a large rock, carved liberally with small sigils and childish illustrations. It was difficult to determine what it really stood for, assuming that it was anything beyond a doodling platform.

Tenzo looked to the rock as well, squinting his wide eyes and taking a step closer. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to him, so he turned his attention elsewhere. In a town this small, he expected few people, but even with such a miniscule population there was a surprising lack of boots on the ground. Just three people were wandering about that he could see, and all of them had their eyes on something other than the pair of Leaf Ninja scrutinizing their lifestyle. A fourth one peaked out from the other side of the earthen slab, a young woman in the earliest of twenties. She stepped near with her head dipped and her right shoulder sloped curiously. When she spoke, it was with a stutter. "Erm, a-are you two here for something specific?" She was dressed simply, a dark brown dress that covered her from the neck to the very soles of her feet, dragging on the ground when she walked. A bonnet on her head concealed whatever hair may have lurked beneath. Her face was plain but pleasant, with her dark brown eyes generally failing to catch attention but certainly fair enough to behold.

As Kakashi was still fixated on the rock that seemed to wind the entire town around itself like a carousel, Tenzo answered her: "Yes, we're here because there have been reports of an attack." He fumbled his hands around a bit, still disorganized by his bulky vest. Eventually he found the most recent of the files, displaying it for the young woman to see—it had been trimmed down, naturally. After committing the contents of the file to memory, he had made certain to conceal any secretive information with a thick black mark. "And this man has gone missing; do you recognize him?" It was Kaine's profile.

The girl nodded quickly, perking up and putting a big grin on her face. Suddenly she seemed a lot more mischievous than she had a second ago. "Oh yeah, I've seen him. He was here the other day. He told me I have very pretty eyes, you know!" She puffed out her tiny chest and straightened her shoulders, trying to exhume confidence, but making an awkward show of it. "I wouldn't say we were attacked, really...I'm Makoto, by the way!" She was plucky now, no longer seeming to be withheld by hesitation. She offered a hand, and Tenzo shook it to seem polite, keeping his eyes on her.

"Call me Tenzo; it's a pleasure, Makoto." He gave a bow of greeting and respect, then put his hand before his mouth and cleared his throat. "I hate to rush back to business, but when did you last see him? Did you happen to see which way he went?" Tenzo's eyes were closed and his hands were propped on his waist, trying to hold a position of authority. He was a captain, after all.

"Uhm, sure," came the apparently confused reply. "It was just a couple of days ago. He went to the village in, uh...that direction!" Makoto pointed her finger, one that was short and a little bit dirty under the fingernails. She was pointing east through the veil of forest, close to the far border of the nation. "Why're you looking for Mister Kaine, Mister Tenzo?" She tilted her head, redirecting her pointing finger at the man asking questions while teasingly offering a disarming purse of her lips. She wagged her lower half side to side, classically cute and shy.

Tenzo felt his cheeks briefly heat up, but he regained his composure before a blush could show. She wasn't all that attractive and her pluckiness was actually a little bit obnoxious, but he couldn't help but feel the weight of her gaze. "He's a shinobi from our village; the Village Hidden in the Leaves," he clarified, pointing his thumb to the spiraling leaf symbol carved onto his faceplate's upper frame. "He was sent this way on an important mission, but we haven't heard from him since his arrival at the border. We were afraid something bad might have happened."

"No, nothing bad." Makoto then paused. "A-at least, I don't think so. Not bad, just...weird," She murmured, her voice kind of heavy. "Mister Kaine arrived with a few others, and he was standing just about where you are, preaching about discovering the truth. He asked me to come with him, but I told him I couldn't."

"Asked you?" Tenzo muttered to himself. Tsunade had presented it all as a violent battle; kidnappings riddled with mysterious glyphs carved into trees. So far, it appeared to him as if it were a simple religious recruitment, or something of the like. Then again, religion could be dangerous in the wrong hands. "Makoto, tell me: was this the first time you saw him and his group?" Tenzo's question seemed to be fueled by suspicion.

"The first time, yeah; I hadn't seen him before. He came by and was trying to convince everybody in the town to come with him." She started out strong, then faltered a bit. "A few of the other villagers agreed to go along," Makoto said thoughtfully. She looked down to her hem-covered feet, putting her hands behind her back and rocking onto her heels. She was barely over half of Tenzo's height; not much of a threat. Nonetheless, Tenzo kept his inner guard up. Something in the air felt wrong. He didn't want to be caught by surprise.

"Is Kaine coming back?" Tenzo asked.

"He didn't say if he was," The young girl replied, nervously completing a sway by falling forward from her heels to crash onto her toes. The gentle impact puffed up some dirt from the dry ground.

"And the others? People you know?" Tenzo asked another question, feeling the tension rising and casting a half-worried glance toward Kakashi. The elder of the two was still studying the stone monument, not adding any of his own thoughts or questions to the exchange.

Makoto, too, looked toward Kakashi. She looked puzzled, ignoring the latest question and piping up in the direction of the quiet ninja. "Mister, what are you looking at?"

Kakashi turned his head as if he were coaxed out of a daze, giving a bewildered "Hm?" before he realized he was being questioned. "Oh, just admiring the artwork here." He was studying each of the symbols and trying to find meaning within them, no doubt. Tenzo couldn't make sense of any of them, but maybe the Sharingan would come in handy somehow—the problem was that Kakashi still had his famous eye covered up, and he was probably just avoiding the busy work of asking around town. _So much for his indomitable work ethic, _Tenzo thought to himself with a flat sneer.

"Oh, okay Mister," Makoto said, cheery again. She turned back to Tenzo, proving that she could remember things for more than the blink of an eye, answering his concern. "Yes, I know all of them. We're a little town; we all talk to each other and buy from one another." She gestured around the circle with both arms spanned wide. Each building had a sign adorning it, one that simply stated its purpose. The structures were all made of wood, roughly nailed together and looking like the entire ring could fall apart with a strong enough breeze. There was a blacksmith, a grocer, a jeweler, and an inn. A pet shop, a tailor, even a sign maker. Though it was small compared to the Leaf, the singular loop had a surprisingly high number of homes and businesses, and as Tenzo accounted for them all he couldn't think of a single service that hadn't been represented at least in part. Makoto spoke sheepishly, breaking him out of his pondering."M-my sister went with Mister Kaine."

Her earlier discomfort quickly made sense, compelling Tenzo to nod. "I see. And you didn't want her to go, did you?"

Makoto shook her head. "No, we all want her to stay here. Believe me, thought about going, too. I stayed because Mom and Dad need us both to help out." She pointed toward the inn; it was easy to figure that she worked there with her family, though now they were evidently shorthanded on the amount of one sibling.

"An inn, huh? Do you get a lot of guests in this place?" Tenzo seemed a bit skeptical. It was hardly a bustling town, even with its own residents. He couldn't imagine that any of them were tourists. The lack of foot traffic made sense after he really took in the surroundings. It was a town full of trade workers and craftsmen, so they were probably hard at work this early in the day. The sun was barely on the noon mark. Lunch was coming soon, so the smells of slowly cooking ribs and ramen began to waft through the air.

"We used to, Mister Tenzo." Makoto answered, and she didn't seem sad anymore, her brown eyes becoming dreamy. "The whole ring would be filled with people. All the time! That rock over there is like our guest book!" she exclaimed, accompanying it with a gesture to indicate the stone. It was enormous and dark gray; aside from the various etchings, it was the same as any huge rock. It was probably there before the town was, serving as a landmark to come home to. It towered over the buildings. "People stopped coming through here, though. When I was little, you know?"

"Sorry to hear it," Tenzo answered, now fascinated with the symbols again. None of them were names, so calling it a guest book was charitable. Some inscriptions were older than others, but one was very new. Loose shavings of the stone were still clinging to the ridges that had been carved. This one was a cloud, rain coming out of its bottom and lightning piercing horizontally through its center. It was odd, as the shuddering bolt should probably have been coming out through the bottom. It must have meant something specific, but Tenzo didn't even know where to begin. A hatred of clouds, maybe?

Makoto cleared her throat. "You can come eat with us; both of you can." She waved over to Kakashi again. "And stay the day and night! We have hot water; you can wash your clothes." She scrunched her little nose, speaking up again. "And yourselves," she added, bringing a thumb and forefinger to pinch the tip of her nostrils, waving her other hand beneath her face. The pair had been traveling all but nonstop for a while, and their accumulated grime proved it. Tenzo brushed his hand along the back of his head, feeling the thickness of his hair and realizing for the first time since his last break that he was covered in dirt, leaf flakes, and bug bites. Kakashi hadn't allowed for enough of a break for Tenzo to create his preferred lodgings, which left him vulnerable to the elements even when he did manage to get a few winks.

"That's a generous offer, Makoto, but we won't have the luxury of a good night's rest," Kakashi said from behind Tenzo, suddenly sounding very serious. Both Makoto and Tenzo turned to regard him, each wearing the same look of disappointment. Their mouths were curled into pleading frowns and their shoulders were hanging dolefully, left without the will to support themselves. "Call it a hunch, but I think our friends are coming back."

"Not that I doubt you, Kakashi, but why do you think so?" Tenzo asked. He certainly knew better than to doubt one of Kakashi's hunches, but at the same time he was being yanked by his brain to disagree, to gravitate toward cleanliness and peaceful rest. The thought of another long night, this time with an opposing force to worry about, struck him like a bolt of lightning. Tenzo blinked, looking to the mammoth boulder. He pieced a crude thought together. "You don't mean that symbol, do you?"

Kakashi moved toward the stone, crouching down to put himself at eye level with the cloud carving, rain beneath and lightning piercing through from one side to the other. "This bolt isn't coming out of the cloud; the lightning is destroying it." Kakashi ran his fingertip below the baseline of the cloud, noting a smoothness in the medium it was chiseled into. "There's a break in the rainfall, here. This cloud isn't pouring any more water." He stood up, turning his head to regard his partner. "When the cloud is empty of rain, it's destroyed by the lightning. Makoto, I think your sister and her companions were the rain, and we're standing in the center of the cloud."

Tenzo huffed, rubbing his temple and breathing in through his nose. "It seems farfetched to me, Kakashi," he said with hopeful doubt. He wanted the brilliant, legendary ninja to be wrong, but something in his own gut had been keeping him alert. Tenzo couldn't previously name the cause of the gut instinct, but hearing his close friend and partner speak so openly about his own concerns made it all seem very real. "Sorry, Makoto. I think he might be right," Tenzo said with genuine regret, looking to the young girl and hoping that she wasn't too worried by the news.

If anything, Makoto seemed glad to hear it. "If they're coming back, my sister might be with them. Maybe I can convince her to stay home, you think, Mister Tenzo?" She got that twinkle in her pupils again, wriggling her shoulders and clasping her hands together. Her emotional topography was almost impossible to chart. It was full of high mountains and low valleys that were constantly overlapping with one another.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We may be overthinking things, but just in case...Kakashi and I will stand guard over the village from the trees along the outskirts. I know we've already been seen by some of you, but please try to avoid talking too much about us, okay? We don't want to lose the element of surprise, if worst comes to worst." Tenzo made the request, but he had a feeling that it was falling on small ears and a big mouth. He couldn't lose points for trying, though, could he?

Kakashi nodded in agreement. "He's right. We want to remain scarce. If anybody asks you, we were just passing through. Understand?" Kakashi spoke directly to Makoto, head cocked aside and arms tucked under one another at chest level.

"Understood, sir!" Makoto gave a salute, her fist bumping against her almost entirely flat chest. She then turned on one heel, marching off. Her low-hanging dress kicked up dirt, and underneath her simple gown it was revealed that she was barefoot. She left a distinct trail of footprints in the dirt, and if one looked hard enough at the thick clump of prints that were left behind by the recent gathering, they could just make out the little imprints of bare feet and toes. She was there, that much was certain. She didn't seem concerned, though.

"What do you think this Kaine fellow is like? I mean, _really_ like." Tenzo wondered as he turned to Kakashi, both of them walking away from the stone and following the unpaved road between two businesses. Unseen people inside were hard at work, the sound of a blacksmith's hammer and the rhythmic grind of a wood saw flanking them. They disappeared beyond the trees, building a healthy distance between themselves and the lively sounds of the sheltered town.

"Maybe we'll see for ourselves, tonight," Kakashi said back, his voice muffled by the leaves and branches that sheltered him from sight.

"And maybe we just passed up a hot meal and comfortable bedding for the sake of a hunch." Tenzo retorted, smirking.

"I'll make it up to you when we get back to the Leaf, Tenzo. I always do, right?" Kakashi gave a thumbs up, accompanied by the rustle of green fronds.

Thoughts of skipped restaurant checks and constant late arrivals ran through Tenzo's mind. "Yeah, right," he grumbled, hopping easily up into a tree of his own and taking position among the branches. He pointed his watchful eyes out toward the monolith that anchored the wheel-shaped community. Barely past noon and he was already signed up for a long night. What a splendid mission it was turning out to be.

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**Another update coming soon. Leave a review if you would!  
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	3. Kaine Hamasaki

**Another chapter. Once again I loved writing it. The perspective switches from Kakashi and Yamato for a while, here. Time to explore a bit of the other side. If you've read this far, please leave a review. I would love some feedback on what was liked or disliked. **

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Kaine Hamasaki was waiting as well, within the walls of another village that was miles away from Kakashi and Tenzo. He was in a damp waiting room, set up with chairs and a table to accommodate the guests. It was dimly lit by a globular lamp that hung from the ceiling, its fire glimmering against Kaine's ocean-blue hair. It was mussed up, as if he had taken a shower and toweled it dry without patting it back down. He was dressed in simple clothes with no frills: a pair of black pants, and a plain black shirt with no vest overlaying it. Kaine was tapping his heel against the wooden floor impatiently, looking to the solid metal door that separated him from the man he had come to see. He was young indeed—only 19 as of a few weeks back—but his allegiances had been many. As a child he bounced from one place to another, born into being an orphan in the Mist and eventually migrating to live as the same orphan in the Land of Fire. Through winding roads and turbulent pathways, he found himself starving and half-dead on the doorstep of an orphanage that took him in. It didn't last; it never did. The hunger and the danger never disappeared, but he kept going in search of a purpose in life. He was used and thrown away by numerous bureaucrats and thugs, but through miraculous luck, he survived the grip of it all.

When a child is abandoned and helpless, all he ever wants is to find a purpose. Kaine was a common case in the ninja world, laying his life down for the sake of people who probably didn't care about him at all...until the truth found him. In an instant, he felt clarity. The man who knew the truth was like none he had ever met before, and it was that man who Kaine was waiting to see. While he anxiously cracked his knuckles and wrung his wrists, he was thinking about the village—about the young girl who stayed behind, despite her eyes telling him that she wanted to come along. Lost in his thoughts, darkness surrounded him. Then the door opened up with a metallic groan followed by a soft, feminine voice that he knew well.

"Hamasaki, he's waiting for you," the girl said with restrained apprehension. The news must either be very bad or surprisingly good.

"Thanks, Akemi," Kaine replied with a grumble, shooting himself up and heading for the door eagerly. Waiting for something usually slowed time down for _anybody_, but for Kaine especially, the inactivity was pure agony. He had been given a new drive, a sense of self-fulfilling purpose that compelled him to cherish every moment of forward progress that he ever made. Sitting down and putting himself at the mercy of his master's whims left him antsy and jittery. He brushed past Akemi, a girl older than him but shorter and—at least by his measure—a few magnitudes less capable. Her hair was almost white, but it was tainted with a dusting of blonde color that made her seem just mildly impure when compared to the paleness of her flesh. She dressed like he did, all black and simplicity, but she had a knife sheathed at her hip and a sword slung over her back.

Kaine entered the doorway, and it was closed behind him by the woman who had come out. He felt alone in the darkness; it was as dark as any place could be. The truth didn't need light, after all. Kaine scoffed in his own thoughts, for he dare not scoff as a greeting. Instead, used to the pure darkness, he set his feet together, clapped his hands in front of his chest, and bowed respectfully in the direction of the void.

"You wanted to speak with me, Master Minoru?" Kaine asked with forced obedience. It was harder than anything for him to admit servitude to anybody, but Minoru was a different kind of man altogether. He was a man who taught freedom, ambition, and following any means to a favorable end. He was also extremely dangerous.

"Yes," the cool, crisp voice answered through the emptiness. Kaine had never seen the room lit up, but its acoustics made it sound like the whole thing was made of iron or steel, hollow and echoing infinitely. He had no idea how large it was, or how low the ceiling drooped—he had never walked further than where he stood at that exact moment. It was forbidden to approach the master in his chambers unless it was to attempt to overthrow him.

Kaine waited in silence, the single word of confirmation resounding into a dull hum, and then nothingness before his idol spoke once again. "You know how I favor you, Kaine," Minoru began, sounding like a father who was about to regretfully discipline his bratty child. "You have put forth a commendable effort since your arrival, and you have learned quickly."

Kaine gulped a little bit, sweat forming on his brow against his will. 'Learned quickly.' That wasn't the first time he had heard those words, and with luck on his side, it wouldn't be the last. He kept his head dipped, eyes closed and hands crossed submissively behind his back. He had come wielding no weapons, as the summons had been unexpected but not entirely unusual. He hadn't even considered that it was time again. Kaine spoke through the dryness of his throat, trying to answer with humble reverence but instead rasping out a jittery few words. "You wish to test me, then?"

Silence followed, but Kaine could picture a nodding head in the back of his mind. He always felt unusually stifled in that room. It wasn't the darkness; he knew darkness as well as any other shinobi. It was something else, like the dry air was trying to physically squeeze the life out of him. Minoru's reply cut through the air like a keen knife, his humble voice carrying clearly. "That is right, Kaine Hamasaki. I wish to see your progress firsthand." Footsteps sounded, coming closer and eventually stopping right in front of Kaine. Still, he could see nothing, even after opening his eyes and hoping to have adjusted to the black expanse. He felt Minoru's presence in front of him, but he could not see it.

"Who shall be my opponent?" Kaine asked without thought or hesitation. The closeness worried him more than the tone, and even more than the impending trial. In the years since discovering this place, Kaine had come to oddly fear his master's presence. In Kaine's experience, Minoru was a kind man—quite gentle when he chose to be. He had a heart that desired harmony with others and a voice that was softly applied, even to strangers and insubordinate minions. Also, he never called them 'minions.'

"Akemi Yamaguchi is to be your partner for the trial," Minoru said evenly. An unseen hand touched on Kaine's shoulder from the front, but he didn't tense. It was a comforting hand, the hand of a warmhearted relative. Kaine felt himself sighing with relief. Every time a test came up, he worried about facing Minoru himself. The idea honestly terrified him, and he could never explain to himself exactly why it did. Really, of all the times Kaine had seen Minoru fight, he had never watched him take a life.

"Understood, Master Minoru," Kaine replied, his shoulder sagging under the hand that rested upon him. The tension was gone, replaced by giddy anticipation. He even smiled. "I won't disappoint you."

"I hope not," came the buttery answer. "Akemi has told me the same. I expect you both to perform well." The hand lifted, becoming a firm and reassuring pat on the shoulder, and then slipped away. "Come, then," Minoru said unceremoniously as he stepped around Kaine and opened the door himself to step into the waiting room where Akemi had remained. Her apprehension seemed justified, and it was certainly more on the side of excitement; she must have been called in first to be given more time to prepare herself.

As the light touched Minoru's form, he became significantly less threatening. He was a man of average height, dressed in a dark blue robe that covered him down to the feet. His hair was dark and lifted into a meticulously wrapped ponytail that reached the lowest point along his spine. His most unusual feature was the head wrap that rested beneath the tail and followed a thick road all around his face. It covered him from his forehead to the base of his nose, leaving his mouth and chin exposed but little else. Along the forehead, the black binding was implanted with a crude, stone forehead protector. It was etched with a heart shape, fanciful and romanticized, as if carved out by a calligrapher's hand.

Akemi and Kaine each had their own forehead protectors, though the symbols were different. Kaine bore a cloud with a bolt of lightning streaking through its pillowy swell, rain falling beneath. He had carved it himself as part of his pledge of loyalty, just as all the others had. Akemi wore an etching like a flower, but she was hardly an artist—one could barely even discern that it was a plant at all, let alone the daffodil that she had intended. Kaine always thought she should have done a better job, but it was her truth to share and he had more important things to worry about.

"Go easy on me, okay, Hamasaki?" Akemi said to him with a smirk on her lips. She seemed undeservedly confident, as Kaine knew for certain that she would not put up much of a fight against _him_.

"I'm not making any promises," Kaine quipped back, taking the lead of the group and walking to another door in the waiting room, the one that opened up into the outside world. Minoru stayed back a ways, letting the two share their banter.

It was early in the day, but the village was dark under the trees. It wasn't like most villages, where the forests were carved out to make room for the humanity that dwelled within. The buildings were constructed haphazardly, built with the aid of the natural denizens of the woods and not in an attempt to subvert them. The workmanship in most of the dwellings was shoddy, as each hut, hovel and tent had been constructed by the one who lived within. It was inconvenient for some, but a blessing to others. Some of the residents had never had anything to call their own, much less built something meaningful for themselves.

Kaine spared an affectionate glance toward the patchwork village, proud of what it had become since the beginning. The building they left was at the back end of it all, encased in dozens of trees. The true structure couldn't be seen at all, concealed behind tangled branches and vines; perfectly hidden. Few outsiders would suspect that the village leader had dwelled behind such a modest door. Stepping along the forest floor, the trio wrapped around the outskirts of the residential area and emerged from the protection of the trees to enter a vast clearing. The training grounds. Here was where the fighting rings had been traced, the dummies set up, and the instructors assigned.

Kaine and Akemi knew the drill well enough. Neither of them were new recruits; years had been spent under Minoru's watchful eyes and tutelage. They were each considered to be the best in their own minds, but Kaine thought better than that. He was the superior one, and he was finally being given his chance to prove it. Their first _real_ battle. No rules. A test of battle power, prowess and intuition.

Kaine took a position in the dirty circle, large enough for a high-level battle. There were smaller arenas for sparring and basic exercises, but what was going to happen there was something far more grand. "Prepare yourselves, my students," came the young-sounding voice of the respected leader. Kaine never took Minoru to be much more than ten or fifteen years older than himself, but that was enough of a skill gap to keep him properly cautious.

Akemi stood across from Kaine with her hand out, formed into the seal of confrontation. Kaine smirked, Akemi did too. They both had confidence, but only one of them was going to win. Sound seemed to dampen and become nothing as they honed their senses, kneaded chakra and spread their feet into fighting stances. A massive, clear barrier began to form around their circle at the behest of a few seals from Minoru and a clap to the ground. The preparations had been made. All it took was the word: "Begin!"

As the vibrations hit Kaine's ears, he felt the word more than he heard it, and his hand dropped down to his side, head dipped forward with his feet sprinting through the dusty earth. _She's an earth type, beware of tremors, _he reminded himself as he rushed in. His eyes were a lighter blue than his hair, and they were focused on the pale green of Akemi's gaze. She was standing still, moving to create seals. She was fast at it, and Kaine couldn't guess which technique she was pulling out. It wouldn't matter which one she was attempting if she never got to finish it, and Kaine reached his hand out to make a grab for her wrist. He had closed the twenty meter distance in the blink of an eye, yet by the time his fingers tried to clasp Akemi's slender arm, he found himself clutching clay-like dirt, the remnants of her escape. He turned his head up to scour the skyline for her, and caught a glimpse of her on the way down.

A pillar stood where she once did, having launched herself high into the air to escape Kaine's reach. The pillar's crest acted as a springboard as she jumped from its curved peak to ascend even higher. Akemi knew Kaine's strengths like he knew hers, and he was much more dangerous up close than far away. _Doesn't matter,_ Kaine thought, clenching the dirt in his fist and then letting it drop. He prepared a few seals of his own as he focused on her trajectory. He knew what was coming next, and he had to be ready. If he slipped up, the battle would end as quickly as it had begun.

After prepping the chakra and weaving the signs, Kaine lifted his arm out and pointed an open palm toward the descending Akemi. She was coming down fast and hard, ready to punch him in the skull with her fist. He had time to dodge, but it wouldn't do him any good. Akemi's feet carried extra lumps of earth, in case she needed something to fire off with her chakra for better leverage in the air. Her hand, similarly, caked itself in dirt that was crushed back into a solid rock, ready to break through flesh and bone and brain all at once. She was going for the kill, but so was Kaine.

"Water Prison!" Kaine screamed, focused and intense as he forced water from his mouth in a massive torrent, all globing up in front of him and expanding, encasing his body in the thick layer of heavy liquid. He splashed the dirt beneath his feet, turning it into mud and hopefully making it more difficult for Akemi to make further use of it. He emphasized the front half of the sphere, pushing it forward as a way of putting as much padding between himself and the rocketing Akemi as he could.

When she collided with the viscous orb, she had been falling at a massive speed. The shock wave slammed through the prison and reached Kaine with a jolting intensity. _Yeah, that would've killed me,_ he thought with a satisfied smirk from within his shell of water as the vibrations rattled him but did not seriously injure anything. He had slowed her down enough so that she only got her arm halfway into the prison, and Kaine stepped out swiftly before migrating the ball to cover the woman instead, using her submerged arm as the focal point. The water engulfed her completely, and Kaine squeezed his hand to condense it further, trying to crush her into immobility with the pressure. It was difficult; Akemi looked timid and frail, but truthfully she was physically stronger than Kaine was, even if it was only barely. He wasn't going to defeat her with a water prison alone.

She was looking out at him with sharp eyes, bubbles escaping her nose as she tried not to breathe in the suffocating cage. She was studying his movements even though she was unable to even struggle against the jutsu that she had fallen into. Kaine felt a rush of satisfaction as he beheld his prey, trapped by his will. One of his hands focused on maintaining the water technique while the other reached into its membrane with another purpose. With one hand he channeled water, and the other hand he channeled his second strongest element—lightning. In a dazzling display of blue light, electricity arced into and out of the prison, forcing Akemi's body inside to convulse and scream against the pain that coursed through her. No sound escaped, but Kaine knew how loud she must have been shrieking to make so many bubbles—and then, suddenly, she collapsed into useless rubble that swam suspended in the water.

_Damn it,_ Kaine thought, frantically dispelling his prison and aiming his electrified hand toward the mud below, hoping to get to her before she got to him. It was too late, though; the clone had distracted him for far too long, and by the time he adjusted his strategy, Akemi's brown-gloved hand was reaching up through the ground to clasp his wrist and divert his attempt to shock her. She sprung out from beneath with considerable momentum, taking one of Kaine's hands and using that grip to fling him up and over her head, in the direction of dry land. He felt the wind rush by his ears, saw the world spinning and twisting around him, and then eventually felt the hard smack of the ground against his back as he landed with a solid thunk and a dusty puff. "Gah!" he shouted, feeling pain all along his back and shoulders. His legs were in good shape, so he sprung up to a standing position to get a good look at the smug face directly across from him. "Good move, I'll give you that," he loathsomely said to her.

"You too, Hamasaki," Akemi called out mockingly.

She had drawn first blood; Kaine dragged his thumb along the base of his nose to catch some of the crimson drip that had been knocked loose by the impact. It was a hell of a wound he probably had swelling inside of him, but he wasn't going to let the pain distract him. He had endurance worthy of spending days to fight, whereas Akemi's biggest weakness was her stamina. Two, no, three techniques already spent. She did some damage, but her prospects for long-term victory were weakened by the clone feint and Kaine knew it. She was already breathing heavily and she hadn't even taken a hit.

Now was the time. She had surprised him once, but she wouldn't do it again. Take it up close and personal. Kaine launched forward in his own way, faster than before. Akemi moved to make seals, slamming her hand into the ground to make obstacles and barriers all along Kaine's approach. It wasn't good enough, this time; he vaulted over rising walls and punched through wave after wave of thick ones already in place with jolts of lightning fired from his mouth. As he closed the distance, he was leaving behind enormous trails of rubble. _Six walls formed, she's almost finished, _he said inwardly as his mouth was roaring his strong ambition to impress their mutual benefactor and leader. Minoru watched patiently from outside the barrier, seated with his legs crossed and arms tucked into their opposing sleeves.

With her chakra nearly exhausted, Akemi's last defense was to lift her arms up and block the devastating punch aimed for her jaw. Kaine struck meat, the thud of bruising impact sounding out and following Akemi as she was pushed back. She had only taken the hit on her arm, and she regained her footing quickly. She reached to her hip to produce a large knife, knowing that the only way she was going to face Kaine without her chakra was with a sharp blade. Kaine didn't have any of his weapons, and he hadn't insisted on being given any, so he only had his own capabilities. That suited him fine.

He was better at the finesse of taijutsu than Akemi was, and he used his greater experience to his advantage. He let her strike first, and when she came at him with a cross slash, aimed right for his throat, he raised his forearm to trap hers from the inside of her arc, stopping her momentum. She came close to getting him, his arm pushed all the way to his cheek and the punishingly sharp knifepoint only an inch from the exposed skin of his neck. Unfortunately for her, she was now quite close to Kaine and had very little chakra left. He opened his palm and charged it with electricity once more. It wasn't powerful enough for piercing like Chidori or Lightning Blade, but it was an effective jolt when he jabbed his open palm against Akemi's stomach, sending a wave of shocking energy straight up and down her nervous system. She twitched, but did not disperse into rubble. She wasn't a clone, this time, falling back and crying out in agony. The knife fell out of her hand, now useless and narrowly out of her reach.

Kaine felt that he had the upper hand now, and with plenty of chakra to spare, he formed another torrential wave from his throat, gushing water all over Akemi's shuddering, half-paralyzed body. He intended to end the battle with a proper spectacle. He formed another water prison, this time managing to capture the genuine article, and he planted both hands inside the expanding border. "Close, but not close enough," he said coldly. Within the broadening globe of water, Akemi's hands regained their movement and rapidly formed a few seals. Her knife was on the mud outside the prison, and with her last reserves of chakra, she stomped the ground just before the water prison fully bound her freedom.

The ground jolted, and Kaine's confident complacence proved to be extremely foolish. The earth spiked beneath the knife, sending the fallen weapon upward and straight through the rim of the prison, slicing the water with the shiny silver blade. The majority of its stabbing length landed directly in Kaine's gut, right above the belly button. He tensed, suddenly feeling the piercing invasion, his nerves dull from the shock but quickly catching up to tell him that the wound was potentially fatal. The pain didn't stop him from making his attempt to complete his attack. If he could just send the electrical current through the prison, he could at least force a draw. There was blood forming in a ring around the stab wound, creating a redness against the black fabric of his shirt. He was coughing up blood now, but both hands were occupied and he could not nurse the sharp, growing throb of injury that spread from the opening in his abdomen.

He tried to finish it, tried to give another roar of defiance, but all that emerged was a flow of blood. It was too late. His strength was giving out. Plenty of chakra, but not enough blood to put it to use. At that rate, he was going to die. The prison dissipated into an anticlimactic splash and Kaine collapsed onto his back, clutching his fresh wound and huddling into a fetal position. He was sweating, cursing and writhing on the ground as he knew he had lost.

Akemi didn't seem concerned for her sparring partner even as he lay there on the verge of blacking out. Kaine looked up at her smirk and he wanted to rip her to pieces. "Turn every weakness into a strength," she said with slow satisfaction. "If I let you think I'm helpless, you'll make a mistake." She reached down to grab the hilt of her knife, then yanked it unpleasantly free from Kain's ruined insides. She was legitimately out of chakra, but she knew her opponent's weaknesses as well as he knew hers. Kaine had massive chakra reserves, incredible speed, crushing strength, and absolutely _crippling _levels of arrogance. In his bid to impress Minoru, he was going for the flashy, showboating finish. "A knife does the trick just as well," Akemi said as she wiped the blood from her blade against the side of her pants. It slipped back into its sheathe as the clear barrier dissolved around their battlefield. By the end, they were standing in ankle-deep water that crashed outward in tiny waves when it was released from its confinement.

Minoru stood with a pleasant smile, stepping toward Akemi and the squirming, bleeding body of his other prized pupil. "Good work, Akemi," he said with a customary pat on the shoulder. "You need improvement, Kaine," he said as well when he knelt down to the muddy, bloody turf. Minoru's hand took on a green glow as he pulled it free of his sleeve, placing a palm against the naked wound in the loser's gut. Kaine stopped squirming and took his own hand away from the leaking opening, confident in Minoru's ability to ease the pain and ensure that his student was indeed lucky enough to be tested again in the future.

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Kakashi and Tenzo had spent days camping out in the brush, exhausting their food pills one at a time as they waited. And waited. And waited a little more, with Tenzo finally getting fed up after the fourth day and standing up from his perch. "I think you may have misinterpreted our mystery symbol," Tenzo announced to Kakashi, who was laying along a branch two trees away.

"Oh, that." Kakashi responded, a book open in front of his face. "I know, I figured that out myself two days ago. I just wanted to get some reading done without the noise of the anvils getting in the way."

Tenzo nearly exploded. "Reading? At a time like this!?"

"Look; Kaine Hamasaki was sent three months ago. Why wait until now to send a rescue team?" Kakashi closed his book—this time, he was finished with it, the same as how he had finished several others during their stakeout. "This isn't anything like what it appears to be, Tenzo. You know it as well as I do."

The wood user relaxed, sighing his reluctant agreement. "Yeah. We've been saying that since the start. What do you think this really is, Kakashi?"

"I think we're being sent as assassins. Under false pretense." Kakashi stood.

"Assassins?" Tenzo said back skeptically. "But you heard the Hokage. She wants the ringleader brought back alive."

"Ideally, yes, but...If this really is a new Hidden Village, we'll be seen as invaders. We'll be given no choice but to fight against them if we intend to carry out our mission." Kakashi looked out toward the massive stone at the center of the peaceful village. The town was called Monolith Point, and it used to make a lot of money for itself. While there was a lack of tourists lately, things had been much more active than they appeared when the ninjas had arrived. People were coming and going from their homes and businesses. It was downright lively at some times of day. Children were playing and adults were laughing; nobody seemed especially depressed about the missing people. "This doesn't seem like the result of kidnappings, or even attacks. Admittedly, it's a political nightmare when the citizens of the Land of Fire defect to another banner, but it's hardly our place to control the ordinary citizens who aren't asking for our help."

"So what do you think we should do?" Tenzo asked.

"Diplomacy." Kakashi said back plainly. "We'll go to Makoto and request that she calls the strangers to us. Let's see what they have to say. If we're lucky, our friend Kaine is going to be with them."

Tenzo gave a nod, finding the plan to be a decent one. Then it struck him. "How do we know that Makoto can get in touch with them?"

"We'll ask her. I think she was given some method. She wouldn't want to be separated from her sister for too long, right?" Kakashi seemed to believe his own suggestion.

"Not that I want to doubt you, but after your cloud theory, I'm having trouble trusting your intuition." Tenzo pondered. "Let's at least stay in the inn tonight. As much as I love nature, I'm getting sick of the bugs."

Kakashi shrugged. "Whatever you say," he hopped out of his tree. Now that he was all caught up with his reading, he was ready to really tackle the mission in his own way. There was a reason that Tsunade waited until Kakashi was available and in his right mind—nobody else would be able to get it done the right way. While they were re-entering Monolith Point, Makoto saw the pair and waved to them from the door to the inn. They each returned a wave of their own, receiving the warm hospitality. Even though it was a forgotten village, its people seemed to like it that way.

Kakashi found himself hoping that his suspicions were false as he walked through the doorway and took a seat at the offered table, a meal already freshly prepared and laid out in front of him. Tenzo took a seat on the other side, digging in graciously after bowing thanks. It was a thousand times better than a food pill, for whatever that was worth. Stirring the broth of the stew which was provided to him, Kakashi pondered heavily. The situation was obviously fishy, but who among the Leaf was strong-arming the Hokage into dealing so aggressively with an uncertain entity? Kakashi could only think of one person who pushed such agendas so brazenly. One man who regularly voiced his disagreements with the Hokage.

Danzo Shimura had to be involved in this somehow.

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**Reviews are always loved. Thank you for reading! As always, another update will be coming soon. **


	4. The Messages

**I greatly appreciate the reviews and support I have been given already. Thank you all very much for reading this far, and I hope you continue to come back.**

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Kakashi couldn't sleep. He felt an odd tension in the air as the night crept up on Monolith Point. It was the kind of tension that was elusive but sharp; even if he could put a finger on it, he would probably have been cut by it. He had concluded that the town was in no immediate danger from the likes of Kaine Hamasaki, especially not with himself and Tenzo there. With their return to the town's public eye, word had spread around immediately that the Leaf shinobi had returned and were staying inside the inn. The publicity was expected, but inconvenient. People had questions and concerns, but they were easygoing about it. Tenzo handled the bulk of the curiosity, stating in simplest terms that their mission was a peaceful one. The whole town was pleasant, even in the face of unusual events. Kakashi still felt uneasy.

The moon was out. It brightly shone down on the sleeping village, and Kakashi was perched on the roof of the inn to keep his eye out. He was calm on the exterior, but his mind was raging. So many things could go wrong on a blissful night like that one. The clouds were small and scattered, making way for a clear view of the black sky and its twinkling stars. Tenzo was fast asleep in a rented room below. They had opted to wait until morning before raising their questions to the young hostess who invited them in.

Kakashi heard stairs creaking inside just below him. Soon, the front door of the building had opened up, and dainty footsteps tapped along the porch. He didn't see who it was, but the only obvious choice was Makoto. She revealed herself after propping up a ladder on the side of the inn and climbing it, coming over the ridge of the roof to stand on top of it. She spoke curiously, hands tucked behind her back, "Can't you sleep, Mister Kakashi?"

"Not tonight," he answered back without turning his head. "Why are you up?"

"I'm thinking about Rika," she said with a shrug of her sloped shoulders. She walked to Kakashi's side and plopped down on her rear, partaking of the view of the night sky with him.

"Your sister?" Kakashi asked, looking down at her. He didn't protest her position.

A nod. "Mmhm, my sister Rika. She went with Mister Kaine and his friends, and I wish she would come back...or at least write a message, you know?"

"She hasn't written?" Kakashi rose a brow—the one that wasn't covered by his slanted headband.

"No, but I think I'll write to her tonight," she said with a wispy little voice.

"Did Kaine tell you how to contact them?" Kakashi asked, seeing a glimmer of hope.

"Sure, but I'm trying not to bother them. Mister Kaine said they would all be busy," Makoto turned those dull brown eyes toward Kakashi as if she were ashamed. "Don't you think it would be rude to disturb them if they're so busy?"

Kakashi chuckled, smiling genuinely under his mask. "No, I think it's a splendid idea. In fact, why don't we both leave messages? I have a few things I'd like to say to Kaine."

Makoto seemed relieved and chipper, but something was nagging at her. She could fool most, but not Kakashi. "Fantastic! If more than one person writes, I won't look like such a pest by comparison!" She paused, clapping a hand over her mouth. "Oh, not to call you a pest, Mister Kakashi."

"Don't worry about it. How do we contact them?" Kakashi tilted his head down, looking Makoto in the eyes. He assumed that it wouldn't be as simple as leaving a letter with a mail service. Either a special courier or a dead drop location seemed the most likely to him. Something that an outsider wouldn't be able to guess at. Whether Tsunade's initial report was entirely legitimate or not, there was plenty of reason to believe that these 'truth' folks were going to be difficult to deal with. The town of Monolith Point was an innocent piece of the puzzle; a happenstance and little else. How friendly would this budding organization be to ninjas on official business?

"There's a tree about a mile from here. Rika's the one who told me to use it before she left. We used to climb on it as kids. It's got a hole in it where owls sometimes live, so we can drop notes there." A pause. "And...When he heard us, Mister Kaine even told me that it was okay to contact him that way, too. I think he could tell I was worried about her." Makoto did seem concerned. She knew what shinobi were; what they did. She looked to Kakashi with a serious gaze. "You aren't going to kill Mister Kaine, are you?"

"I will if I'm forced to." The answer came with a cold suddenness. Kakashi wasn't going to lie to her.

"H-he isn't a bad guy. I don't know what he did to deserve the likes of you coming after him, but...I know exactly who you are." She pointed cautiously toward Kakashi's tilted forehead protector. "I know what's under that headband. You're Kakashi Hatake, the Sharingan Legend...Right?"

"Hmm, I don't know about being a legend, but that sounds enough like me to be true," he answered easily. After a brief pause, he looked out over the sleeping, ring-shaped town. "I only kill for the Leaf, Makoto. For my friends. If Kaine Hamasaki isn't a threat to us, then I'm not going to kill him."

"And my sister?" Makoto was wringing her hands together nervously. She hadn't taken her eyes off of Kakashi since she sat herself down. Specifically, she was looking at all the pouches and sheathes all over his body. He was dressed like a ruthless killer, the same as any other ninja she had seen.

"I hope your sister hasn't gotten in over her head. Fortunately, it has only been a few days; I doubt she's in danger yet." He was being honest, at least. Perhaps too honest.

"Yet?" came the gulping whisper.

"We don't know who these people are, much less what they want. The rumor is that they're starting up a new Hidden Village. Something like that could be dangerous for this region, even if it doesn't mean to be." Kakashi wondered how much the young woman really knew about the villages and their politics—their crimes of opportunity. "If word gets out that there's a fledgling village between the Land of Fire and the Land of Water, then there may be a power struggle. Somebody might want to strike first and absorb the new village's strength into their own."

"Is that why you've come here, Mister Kakashi?" Makoto asked, wearing an inquisitive look that made it seem like she was having fun playing detective. She had an unremarkable face, but she was proving to be pretty sharp.

"No. First and foremost, I'm here to find out what's actually happening. Second, I want to bring Kaine back with me. Whether he's a threat or not, we need to find out why he left us. We've taken some heavy hits in recent years, and we need to plug any gaps through which our fighting strength might leak out." He left out the important details for Makoto's sake; rogue ninjas were a liability in numerous ways. Defection meant a spread of information. Potential enemies would also view such abandonment as a sign of weakness for the Leaf. There were dozens of reasons to keep rogue ninjas in line, but the innocent lass didn't need to know them all.

"So you think that some of Kaine's friends might go where he is, and leave your people behind?" She took her eyes off of Kakashi, looking out over the village that was her home. "I miss them—Rika most of all—but there's also Sammy, Fiona, Mako, Nick, and Tito." She was counting on her fingers as she named them off, biting her lower lip at the end to review her thoughts and make sure she didn't leave anybody out.

"Six, then. Were any of them children?" Kakashi asked.

"No, they wouldn't take kids. Only people old enough to fight. I guess that's what Mister Kaine said." She pursed her lips and her eyes swelled a little. "Who do you think they're going to fight?"

"That's what we've come to find out," Kakashi answered with confidence. "Kaine didn't organize all of this on his own. Somebody's behind him making the decisions, and that's the person I need to see. I'm hoping Kaine can lead me to whoever it is."

"Can I come with you and Mister Tenzo? I want to make sure Rika is safe," she said, but she was lying; at very least, she wasn't telling the whole truth. Kakashi could tell by the way her voice shifted whenever she mentioned their rogue compatriot. What Makoto really wanted was to see Kaine again, for one reason or another. That compliment to her eyes must have really stuck.

"I don't think that's a good idea. We don't know what we're going to find, and it would be irresponsible to drag you along. Your place is here with your family." Dropping the no-nonsense tone, Kakashi played up his friendliness. "Let's write our messages and see what comes of them, alright?" He reached into one of the bulkier pouches hanging at his hip. He pulled out two scrolls of paper, an ink well, and a brush. At least that slot wasn't full of weapons. "You go first," he offered, placing a scroll beside Makoto's thigh and offering her the ink and brush. The inn roof was made of numerous planks of wood, nicely sanded and weatherproofed. The nail work that held it together was shoddy at best, but the surface was flat and stable enough to use as a writing table.

Makoto accepted the writing utensils, took the scroll and turned around. She bent forward to write her message out of Kakashi's sight. Or so she thought. Kakashi lifted his headband out of the way, opening up his Sharingan and watching the movements of the girl's elbow as she wrote. It wasn't a perfect method, because she had lousy handwriting. Still, he got the bulk of her message. Makoto wrote for several minutes. She paused here and there to touch the shaft of the brush to her chin in thought. When she finished, Kakashi hummed thoughtfully and concealed his Sharingan before she turned around to give the inky brush back to its owner.

Kakashi's message was shorter. It was also written in a code that could only be deciphered by Anbu members, past and present—easily, at least. Any code could be broken with enough enthusiasm, but he didn't expect its contents to come under too much extreme scrutiny. Not if Makoto was being honest with him about the circumstances of the drop point. He rolled up his message after the ink had dried, tucking the remaining supplies into his pouch and fastening it shut. "Since I can't sleep anyway, I'll deliver both messages. You try to rest; trust me when I say that things will be alright in the end." He gave Makoto a pat on the head, but she pouted. She looked unconvinced.

"People always tell you that, but it's not always true. I'm not a kid; you don't need to lie to me to make me feel better." Makoto was grumpy. She probably wanted to deliver the messages herself, but there was no way she was going to try to convince the imposing shinobi to let her do it. She wasn't really thrilled by the idea of tagging along with Kakashi the whole way, either. To her, Kakashi was the man most threatening to her sister. He was a legendary assassin. Makoto settled on letting him go alone, huffing out a sigh and telling him where to find the tree that served as their communications tower.

Kakashi nodded to her instructions. They were easy to follow, boiling down to "go north until you hit a stream, then turn left." Tenzo didn't need to be awoken for such a simple task, so Kakashi stood with a nod to Makoto and tucked the messages under his arm.

"I'll see them safely delivered. Take care of Tenzo if he wakes up and asks where I am." He pulled on the wrists of his gloves, tightening them around his knuckles and flexing his fingers. "I won't be long," he said, and he didn't wait for a reply before hopping off the roof in the direction of the tree. North, through the forest.

Makoto was left behind, suddenly realizing that the rooftop was cold. Its height had been inviting wind gusts that the trees and buildings would normally have stopped, had she been nearer to the ground. She shivered, wondering to herself if she had just made a terrible mistake. Mister Tenzo was kindhearted and easy to talk with. Kakashi Hatake, though, had a coldness to him—and had a reputation for delivering merciless executions.

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_He was cold, he was hungry, he was thirsty, he was tired, and he was alone. His feet were blistered and bloody from walking over ruined homes and discarded weaponry. Dead bodies seemed to greet him whenever he turned a stone over in search of something—anything—he could use to nourish himself. His stomach growled, pounding against the paper-thin layer of skin that kept his body from dissolving in its malnourishment. Every step was agony and every breath he took came with the burden of drying up his throat even further. He thought to himself that it was okay to give up, okay to stop living that way. He could have taken any one of the bloody kunai scattered about and turned it on himself; he could have done any number of things to make it all stop. Something in him was stubborn, though. It told him to keep walking; to keep struggling. He hated the voice like he hated the pain of survival, but he had no choice but to obey it. It was his own voice, right?_

Kaine Hamasaki awoke all covered in sweat and groaning in a groggy state of half-sleep. The first thing he noticed was the shooting pain in his gut, and he remembered what and who had put him on the ground. His hand went to his stomach, but there were tight bandages surrounding his wound. They were clean and white, freshly changed. The second thing he noticed was the smirking face of Akemi Yamaguchi looming over his blanketed husk. He felt empty and weak, but he still wanted to punch her teeth out for the look she was giving. He settled on a furrowing of his brow; a tweak of his mouth into a snarl. "Come to stab me again?" He spat the words to her, trying to sound rough but really just rasping desperately.

"Come on, Hamasaki, it was just a test," the older female replied, lifting a glass full of water to Kaine's face. He clutched it eagerly, raising its rim to his lips and chugging the whole ration in a single gulp. He coughed forcefully as the cold liquid filled his form and reminded him once again of just how much his gut was killing him. "You were going to do worse to me if you got the chance, right?" Akemi winked, bearing that insufferable smirk.

"And then some," came the normalized response from the blue-headed invalid. "You got lucky, is all." He felt genuine rage, but it wasn't toward the girl. He was glad to know that she was stronger than he expected. Craftier. Really, though, she won because he got cocky. He thought she was too weak to power through his prison, too empty to summon up enough chakra for any more techniques. It was stupid to underestimate her, and that stupidity rightfully landed him in a hospital bed.

Calling it a hospital was a might generous; it was a building meant for medical care, yes, but it was as rudimentary as every other structure in their village. There were small gaps in the wall where sticks hadn't aligned just right and the layer of caked mud had begun to flake out. It was a dry season; the streams were lower and the mud was quick to become parched and fragile. The breeze was chilling as it slipped through the cracks, and Kaine huddled up with his blanket. He pulled the sheet over his head and looked down at himself beneath the cover. He had been undressed and wrapped in bandages, left in a pair of shorts that hung loose around his waist. He certainly wasn't the boy he used to be; gone was the starved ribcage and fragile flesh. Now he was fit and tanned, though he had unsightly scars along his chest and covering the bottoms of his feet. No doubt he had a new one right over his navel to top it all off.

"Minoru told me that he's considering a promotion—for both of us." Akemi tried to use some good news to puncture the thick layer of grouch that always accompanied one of Kaine's defeats. For being as talented as he was, the poor fool couldn't take a loss very well.

Kaine pulled the blanket down from over his head, peeking up at Akemi like a gopher emerging from the safety of his hole. "Promotion? You mean there's a higher position than the one we're already in?"

"Of course there is, idiot," the sassy woman answered. "What, you think you're in charge or something?" She balled her hand into a fist and gave a light, playful tap on Kaine's stomach. Even the feather-light contact shot six different kinds of pain through his whole nervous system. He winced inwardly and grit his teeth behind closed lips, but he refused to show how much it burned him.

Inhaling sharply, he pushed himself to sit up. "I mean, aren't we already Minoru's favored pair?" Kaine bit himself within his mouth, trying to distract is thoughts from the lingering ache at his core. Akemi took her fist away long ago, but it left an imagined, phantom print that kept providing new and annoying sensations. "What's higher than us?"

"Generals. We're building up an army, remember?" Akemi tapped her pointer finger to the side of her head. "Come on, Hamasaki. I know I got you good but I didn't come anywhere near your brain."

Right. An army. "I'd make a better soldier than a leader, doesn't he see that?" As Kaine moved, the sheet came down off his shoulders and spilled down to his waist. His hand went to the fresh bandages, rubbing his own wound as if to compel it to leave him alone. "When I make my own decisions, they get people hurt." He was overplaying his humility, of course. He was shooting for sympathy from Akemi; anything to get that ever-present smirk off her face. She seriously could have been beautiful without her attitude, he had often thought.

"A soldier who gets himself pummeled on a regular basis, but a soldier nonetheless," she answered with a knowing grin. She hadn't fallen for Kaine's pitiful act since the time he broke her very first chair. Still, the young man saw no harm in trying when he saw a chance. "You should try to walk around. This wounded hero act isn't going to carry you for much longer." She poked Kaine on the nose, then yanked her hand back when he tried to grab her by the wrist indignantly. He was still weak; still slow. She could toy with him then, but once he was fully healed she would probably not risk it. Somewhere deep inside herself, she knew he was right. She knew she only won because of luck. Had she been a split second slower or a half a step closer to him, she would have been the one hobbling around, or even buried in the dirt.

"I'll walk when I—," Kaine paused as something struck his thoughts. "...How long have I been out?"

"A couple of days, nothing unusual. Minoru says you lost most of your blood. It's a good thing he's so damned good at healing, yeah?" She stepped back from his bedside. She was a grown woman, a few years older than Kaine and properly developed around the chest and hips. She was wearing something more casual today, and not the plain black outfit that they both wore to fight. Her top was dark pink and sleeveless—very nearly red but ever so feminine as it hugged her upper body. Its neckline was high, with just enough of a dip to show the beginning of her collarbone on each side of her neck. Her brown pants were also snug along her frame, and they chased down to her black boots with open toes. She accessorized, too; bracelets adorned each wrist made of hand-carved beads just behind the bases of her gloves. Her ultra-light blonde hair hung around her shoulders, flowing whimsically in the gentle breeze that crept into the medical room.

"A couple of days, huh?" Kaine put his hand to his forehead, then brushed his palm down the whole of his face. He stretched out his eyelids and nose and lips with the movement, then shook his head violently like a dog getting out of water. "That's too long, I have someplace I need to go," he said with his body turning to throw his feet over the side of the bed and stand himself up. He felt woozy. His balance was off, initially, but he got the hang of his sluggishness after a few wobbles. There was a small table beside his bed that carried his headband, and he affectionately picked it up to run his fingers along his self-carved symbol. A cloud, rain, and an out of place bolt of lightning. He smirked, reinvigorated by the sight, and tied the black strip of cloth around his head. He ensured that the clunky stone forehead protector was worn proudly in the front.

Akemi seemed displeased. "Where does a sap like you have to go at a time like this? Look, when I said you should move I didn't mean that you're supposed to go run laps, just...you know, walk around the room a bit. You've been curled up in this bed for days." Akemi showed real concern on her brows, puffing out her lips in a huff. "Hey, you know, I'm sorry I had to beat you, but you don't have to push yourself to prove anything. Take it easy. Nobody's going to war."

"Yeah, not yet." Kaine ran a hand through his hair, mussing it up how he liked it. He shook his head one more time; it wasn't so bad being on his feet, but the sting in his gut had been nagging him. He was slowly getting used to it, though, and by the time he found his clothes in the wardrobe near the bed he was forgetting he was even hurt. Sort of.

"At least tell me where you're going, yeah?" Akemi watched him. She was seated on the floor now with her legs close together and her knees raised, arms wrapped around them to hold them under her chin.

"I promised a girl from the last village I went to that I'd let her send messages to her sister," he said as he tried to kick himself into his pants. They were proving to be pretty stubborn, and he was hopping up and down on one foot trying to get them on. He was trying to do it without bending at the waist, because he was learning to hate the twinge it caused when he did. "I'm just going to the drop point."

"Oh, do you make that arrangement for all the girls, or just the pretty ones?" The tease in Akemi's voice was palpable, and she had a big grin on her face like she had caught Kaine in Minoru's sake cabinet. Afterward, though, she acquiesced. "Fine, fine. Just don't be gone too long. Want me to tell Minoru, or would you rather have him find out on his own?"

"You can tell him whatever you like. We don't keep secrets here, right?" Kaine looked to Akemi as if he were accusing her of something, but his gaze softened a moment later. "Congratulations on beating me, Akemi. You did good. I mean that." He took out a fresh vest, similar to those worn by Jonin of the Leaf, but colored a dark blue—Minoru's favorite color. Kaine didn't mind the hue, as it went well with his blue-black hair.

"Yeah, well, you had an off day. Could have been your win just as easily." She then grinned, turning back to mischief when she saw him don the vest. "You're getting all dressed up?" Akemi twirled a lock of her hair. "This girl must be something special. You didn't even wear that for _our _date."

Kaine answered with a distasteful sneer. "Save it; you know it's dangerous for us to be going anyplace alone. I need to be ready." He made for the door, wincing when he turned out of Akemi's sight. Yep, it still hurt.

"Don't you have birds you can send to retrieve the messages while you rest?" Akemi snickered, knowing Kaine's motivations all too well.

"You know me, Akemi; I get agitated if I stay in one place for too long." Exactly what she thought his answer would be; brash and impatient even as a cripple. That was Kaine Hamasaki in a nutshell.

"Alright, well...If you find yourself in trouble, send one of your birds to me. I'll track you down myself." Akemi stretched her arms above her head, yawning openly. "Until then, I need another nap." She shut her eyes, sincerely falling asleep before she even said goodbye. On the floor of a hospital room.

Kaine just rolled his eyes, leaving the room and turning left down the hallway, stepping out into the village. The medical center was at the heart of the residential area. There weren't any kids there—not anymore—and the adults were busy tending to their personal living spaces. There was one person in particular that he needed to speak with before he left, and he saw her raven black locks poking out over a useless stack of twigs and leaves. That was her 'house.'

"Hey, Rika!" Kaine called out with a hand cupped on the side of his mouth. When she perked up and saw him, she stood up with a salute, her hand on her chest. "Come here," he said more softly, curling his index finger. Better for her to move to him than the other way around; he didn't want to show his disability too openly as he struggled to walk. She followed his request and bounded over to him, halfway tripping over some stray stones. Their village didn't have any legitimate roads; it was relatively new, and its borders were expanding constantly. Roads could come later.

"What's up, Kaine?" Rika said when she got close enough to speak normally and be heard. She was a lot like Makoto, especially in how modestly she dressed. It looked like she only had ten copies of the same dress to wear, but she was always clean. She kept her hair undone, though, no bonnet to speak of. It fell in curls upon curls, bouncing with every step. She was taller than her sister and with smarter features on her face. She had a striking kind of beauty that Makoto hadn't inherited, but Kaine didn't think that way about her.

"I'm headed out to pick up messages, and I thought you should know about it." He walked away from the medical building. From the outside, it was even less impressive than the inside. Unpolished wood jutted out in every direction from its roof. It looked like a stick teepee, but it was sufficiently large. The interior structure was sturdy, and on the outside it was already protected by the tree leaves overhead. "Your training will be handled by Akemi, today. That is, if I'm not back in time. I doubt I'll find much trouble, but you should plan to meet up with her at an hour past noon. She'll be at the training grounds, alright?"

Rika nodded. "Sure, and I'll tell the others."

"That's my girl," Kaine answered with a pat on Rika's shoulder. His business with her was concluded, so he turned toward his own living quarters and she turned the opposite way. His home was sandwiched between two short hills that were heavy with trees. His structure was hardy, looking like it was painstakingly crafted with precision and experience. It had a working door and a knob made of finely sanded wood. He turned it, and the mechanism hidden behind the door panel clicked open, leading to his home. It was messy like his head, but he knew where to find everything. He gathered up his sword, slinging its sheathe over his shoulder. He loaded up with kunai, shuriken, senbon, and razor wire from all over the room, tucking them into the various pouches on his vest. Carefully, he opened a box on his disheveled desk, revealing home-made paper bombs. Not quite as refined and powerful as the ones found in the Leaf, but they served their purpose. A few smoke pellets were taken as well. All armed and prepared, Kaine took a deep breath and tightened the wrap of his headband.

Emerging from his house, he found that Rika had wandered off to find the others. She was part of a group of six, and Kaine was responsible for them all. He didn't feel so bad about shoveling them onto Akemi's shoulders—not after she kept smirking at him like she tended to do. His counterpart could handle them, anyhow. Like him, she was Minoru's hand. Left and right. They didn't always get along, but they did what was necessary for their people, just as their dear leader did.

As he made the trek from the heart of their village to its outer border, he passed groups of people huddled over tree stumps with bowls of naturally growing berries filled to the top. Breakfast; it was still very early, then. The perfect time to set out; he might even make it back in time to handle the training himself. When he escaped the confines of the village, the trees became thinner. Only barely, though; he glanced around, looking at the various trunks. Each of their barks wore the carvings given to them. "Truth," they all said in various writing styles. Each member carved their own tree. Kaine's marked tree was closer to the village center, but the newer members had been forced to go further and further out to find their own spot. The borders were marked by truth, and every single day they were reaching further. Before long, they would have the size and capacity to declare themselves to the world. Not yet, though. There was still very much work to be done.

Kaine's journey was quick and uneventful, sticking to the high points in the trees. Each hop made it easier for him to accept his weariness, until it eventually faded away altogether and gave way to a pleasant freshness. He always felt better when he was active; when he got to move around. He was like a bird in that way. His greatest fear was of living in a cage.

He heard the bubbling of the stream below him. Had it already been so many miles? The sun was reaching higher in the sky than he realized. His thoughts must have kept him unaware of how far he had gone, but he was nearly at his destination already. He followed the stream up its course and came across the special tree that had branches low to the ground. It looked like several trees growing against one another, and it was the perfect place for beginners to practice climbing.

He jumped down from his high place, landing lightly on his feet in front of the specific branch that they had agreed upon. It was odd that he found two scrolls in the concealed hole, but he thought little of it. He had been out for several days, so Makoto was probably worried. He opened the first one on a whim, curious to know what the girl was saying to her sister—curious further about whether she had mentioned him. What he found instead of an earnest girl's handwriting was a familiarly coded cipher, addressed to him. "Kaine Hamasaki," it began. He narrowed his eyes and closed the scroll after reading his name. He looked carefully around the dense woods, listening against the backdrop of a serene stream. The day was peaceful if a bit chilled, but somebody's killing intent hung in the air. He knew better than to be caught in broad daylight trying to decode a message; it was a commonly known tactic that an enemy could use to distract inexperienced operatives. Send a difficult-to-interpret but 'urgent' message to a compromised drop point and enjoy the results. Kaine decided to read the rest later. He opened a pouch in his pants and tucked both scrolls into it for safekeeping.

_I know you're there, you bastards, _he silently taunted. He turned to walk away from the tree, eyes shut. Kaine knew Minoru was blind, but still the man was impossible to ambush. Maybe closing his eyes would help him find his mysterious stalkers. He heard rustling, and it wasn't the noise of any wildlife he knew of. _One, two, and three, _he counted the sources of human noise as he stepped. He crossed the stream, which was barely more than ankle deep at that time of year. He entered denser forest land, getting further and further from his village—and from Monolith Point. The last thing he needed was for some kind of commotion to draw all the innocents into the area. The more distance from both places, the better. He was keeping his ears attentive; he knew that they were still following.

He reached a thick part of the woods that once again intersected with the winding stream. Its flow went in many directions, but Kaine knew this branch was much farther away from civilization. He hated to let himself loose where there might be collateral damage. Confident that he was in a remote enough location, he stopped walking. He reached his hand behind his back to draw his curved blade, ready to use it. He heard three branches creak with the weight of ninjas, all jumping with massive speed toward his location. Just as he caught himself thinking that handling _only three_ would be no problem, he felt the crippling jab of pain strike him from within his wound. _Alright, it might be a problem, _he thought. But it was too late. He had stopped. They were upon him.

The fight had already begun.

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**Once again, I want to thank you all for the support. I'm having a fantastic time writing this and I hope you've all been enjoying it. More to come as soon as I get it finished!**


	5. The Will to Survive

**This one gets a bit violent, so brace yourself. Again, thank you, everybody, for your time. I love all the reviews, favorites, and follows I've gotten so far. I would be having fun writing even if nobody was reading it, but it's very motivating to know that people are enjoying what I do! **

* * *

Kaine was at the center of their triangle; he had walked into a trap, but he had to do it in order to lure them to reveal their positions. By his first impressions, they collectively seemed like a three man squad that was accustomed to working together. That coordination put the lone, wounded rogue at a distinct tactical disadvantage. Dying leaves swaying on branches in the wind gave way to heavy bodies in perfect synchronization high above the forest floor, and Kaine turned his head quickly to gather up their revealed positions. He also wanted to see their faces, but they wore masks and black robes that covered their bodies. Leaf Anbu, then. He should have figured as much, given the coding of the message he found. His sword was out, gleaming brightly in the sunlight of the late morning. They were closing in. He wanted to jump, but he didn't trust the air above him; rising up would leave him vulnerable to a follow-up attack. To stand a chance, he had to remain grounded.

The assailants had their weapons out too, short blades with flat tips that weren't meant for stabbing. Kaine looked to all sides, considering his options. Closer, now. His water prison was good for defense against blunt attacks, but piercing and slicing force would rend through it as easily as if it were any other water. He held his breath, willing himself to ignore the pain that was about to grip him as he hunched down closer to the ground, bent at the knees and waist. He tossed the hilt of his sword to one hand and drew a kunai into the other. The movement stung, but the approaching blades would sting much worse if they reached him. He forced chakra into his hands, which extended out into the metal of his weaponry, charging the implements with potent lightning.

As the trio came into range, Kaine made a quick twirl on his heel, spinning his blades out to hopefully intercept and shatter the short tools that his adversaries had drawn toward him. He felt himself rend through two of the tantos, but the third one held fast. He heard crackling and felt a conflicting current against his strong push. Another lightning nature; just what Kaine was worried about. Kaine's longer sword clashed with the stranger whose hands were charged with a nearly identical electrical current to his own. That one's mask looked like a rabbit with red lines painted thinly around the eye holes; the elongated ears seemed comical, but the man concealed behind them was not a joke. The other two ambushers had taken a leap backward after the loss of their weapons, preparing alternative methods of attack by weaving signs. The sharp fractals of broken metal now littered the ground at Kaine's feet, and he took quick note of them. He hopped backward as well, disengaging from his opponents and landing beside the peaceful stream. Not missing a step, the third man with no face quickly drew signs to catch up to the pace of his partners. Kaine weaved his own signs; simpler ones.

The stream bubbled in response to Kaine's chakra, forming into the shape of a serpent and lifting itself up from the dirt. The continuous flow fed into the massive beast, allowing it to grow larger and larger. Its great head dwarfed Kaine, looming over his stature in waiting as the trio of Anbu completed their own seals. They took deep breaths in unison, and Kaine braced himself. Their techniques emerged one at a time. A horizontal, vertical and diagonal wind blade each followed after one another. The waves weren't aimed for Kaine, but rather up toward his watery construct. He grimaced when he moved to throw his hands toward the ground, bidding the massive water dragon to slam the leafy floor between himself and the combined attackers. They were already forming a follow-up to their failure without passing any orders amongst themselves.

The watery dragon collapsed weakly into a puddle on the forest floor, seemingly made useless by its self-defeating dive to avoid the gusty blades. Kaine saw the next volley of cutting air pressure coming for him; they were spinning in a spiral to minimize the chance of letting their prey dive through the gaps in the wind. If he allowed himself to be hit, he would have been sliced to pieces, and he decided it was time to risk a jump. Kaine's sword was tucked away in its sheathe over his back and his kunai was dropped to the watery ground as he made a desperate leap over the encroaching whirlwind and just barely cleared it. The disturbance created in the surrounding air by the anomaly threw him off course in a way that he hadn't expected, sending him crashing into a tree that had painfully sturdy bark. He hit with his back first and was folded over the tree's curved midsection, feeling his abdomen stretch and his wound starting to reopen completely. Some of the hard bark chipped off, digging aggressively into Kaine's back, but it failed to puncture the thick blue material of his vest.

He groaned in pain, and his senses were dulled by the rush of blood seeping free of his core. On another day, he would have had an easy time with the three ninjas, but in such ragged shape he was forced to desperation. He buckled and fell to the ground, cushioned by a layer of dirty brown leaves as he rolled onto his front, weaving signs along the way. The Anbu were rushing to him again, splashing their feet through the deep water that had pooled along their battlefield. Their hands were crossed in front of their chests, more seals for more wind bursts. Kaine finished first, using the water at their feet to bubble up three globes of liquid. They weren't full prisons; there wasn't enough time to collect all three of them before the group would be within lethal striking range.

The globes emerged in front of each of the three, and the one in the center—the one who had the strong lightning element and the rabbit mask—called out a warning. "Back!" he shouted curtly, but it was too late. Only one of the three had stopped himself and leaped back, but the other two were just a hair too short on the uptake. Kaine flexed his arms and pushed all the chakra he could spare into the orbs that had arisen. As the sun shone through them, the fragments of the broken swords glistened within the water, picked up by the swell. With the surge of Kaine's chakra channeled forth, the hovering orbs exploded violently, firing off shrapnel in every direction. Without enough time to ensure the proper precision, Kaine finished the seals and curled up, his arms protecting his neck and head as small shards of steel and pointed water peppered the entire area. Kaine took a few fractals in the forearms and knee, but he was largely missed. The ones closest to the bursts were hit hardest, dozens of prickly metal barbs finding their way into the robes and beneath their protective layers. Between the piercing sword bits and the honed sharpness of Kaine's own water style, the unfortunately lacking pair were both sent sailing through the air and onto the ground, crumpled into heaps and full of bleeding puncture wounds. They weren't moving or groaning; they were dead, or would be soon.

The third one didn't show a trace of emotion toward the mishap. The mask concealed him well, and his head did not even turn to regard his fallen comrades. That struck Kaine as especially odd; though he had not spent much time in the Leaf, he had sensed a deep sense of companionship between the shinobi there. The detached nature of this remaining ninja sent a shiver up Kaine's spine as he gathered himself back together and stood. He winced, coming to mind of his new wounds and the older one that was open again. He was just about as bloody as the two vanquished ones, but his own leaks were from markedly less vital points. Kaine brushed his gloved hands over his arms and legs to scatter away the shallowly sunken blade bits.

The environment around them had been devastated by their battle thus far, with man-shaped cracks formed in the sides of decades-old trees and tiny holes punched straight through the leafy canopy overhead. Kaine reached to his back, producing his sword once again and holding it in front of himself defensively. He was ready to take the dangerous one on at last, but he wasn't in the condition to rush head first.

Neither one of them wanted to take the first risk, and the pause in combat gave Kaine a chance to catch his breath. His respiration came in desperate gulps as he tried to stabilize himself, hardly capable of seeing straight with all the pain and blood loss. It hadn't been a pleasant week for him, so far. Kaine got the sense that his opponent had initially underestimated him; it was a fatal mistake for the masked man's subordinates, but a learning experience for their leader. Of course Kaine hadn't been lucky enough to inflict any damage upon the Anbu squad leader, his robes completely intact and his mask pristine. Though the numbers had dwindled, Kaine was still in a precarious position. Again he ran into the issue of having tons of chakra left, but not enough focus to use it. Every ounce of his attention had to be pasted to the ominously still and silent assassin a few paces away.

"You look tired," came a muffled voice; it originated from behind the mask. "Why not surrender to me?"

"Whoever sent you on this mission didn't tell you anything about me, did they?" Kaine answered, bringing the back of his hand up to wipe his mouth clean of dripping blood. "I'm Kaine Hamasaki, and I don't stop until I'm dead...So come on; try to kill me." He opened his arms wide, tauntingly exposing his blood-drenched flak jacket. Was it wise to boast at a time like this? Probably not, but Kaine always thought wisdom was overrated. He enjoyed the down and dirty, visceral feeling of combat for the sake of combat.

"Very well," came the stone reply, hand signs being weaved and strong lungs emptying out with a long exhale. Kaine instinctively pressed chakra down into his feet, bracing against the heavy mud beneath him. The programmed response kicked in just in time; to follow the tremendous exhale came an equally forceful inhale, augmented by chakra to become a massive wave of suction. Kaine's feet gripped hard on the ground, but he felt himself slipping. The mud was slick and giving way to layers further beneath, and Kaine carried entire lumps along with him was he was steadily yanked forward.

"Fine," Kaine heaved, opening up the lower right pouch in his vest and producing one of his moderately effective paper bombs. Igniting it with a thumb-flick of electrical energy, he threw it into the suction. The gap was closed quickly and the flaming explosive was caught by the wind, finding its way to the masked man's face and exploding right on target. The resulting boom shook more brown leaves free of the trees, and no doubt it had scared off the birds. Kaine had hoped that Monolith Point was far enough away to be left out of the battle; he hoped further that the endlessly cascading trees would keep the noise muffled.

As the smoke cleared from the explosion, the masked man was coughing but unharmed. He had seen through the attack and distanced himself, but at least the suction had been stopped. Kaine thought about running, maybe even trying to circle around and get an advantage. He stopped that thought; it would be impossible to lose his aggressor with that much blood leaving a trail. Besides, he was scolding himself for even considering a retreat in the first place.

"At a standstill, aren't we?" Kaine taunted further, going against his better judgment; the rational voice in his head which he never listened to. Always, he listened to the feral urge, the one that told him to keep going forward. Kaine's long, curved sword was still drawn. It was shimmering in places, but also flecked with his own blood. His opponent had somehow avoided damage twice now. The crisp condition of the gleaming white mask was driving Kaine wild with frustration. He was going to break those damned rabbit ears with his bare hands; that was a promise he made to himself.

His opponent was unmoved by the second taunt; speechless and focused. Kaine felt his anger rising again. It hurt to breathe, and it hurt to _not _breathe, so all he could do was suffer as well as he could on his way to victory. His feet were steady even if his mind wasn't. His body knew what to do, and it spoke to him: _Now or never._

"Lightning and Wind nature, eh? Not a bad combination; you'll be the first of that type that I've ever killed," Kaine said with legitimate praise and honest intentions to his opponent before girding himself and firing off a step. He began to sprint, his feet still braced by chakra to the slick mud and puddled water. Each step was heavy, but his mind had been turned off. He was firing on all his reserves, incapable of stopping even if he tried to change his mind. He was fueled by the constantly drumming repetition from his hands, his feet and his throbbing wounds. Each thump of his pulse reminded him: _Now or never_.

The other man rushed to meet Kaine, refusing to be caught standing still by such intense momentum. Again, he had underestimated his target and again he risked paying a deep price; Kaine had fueled his sword with chakra yet again, but only enough to ensure that the other man's lightning did not slice clean through. They had equally charged their swords, and they crossed in the center of the disrupted stream of water. A surge of crackling energy sparked out from their blades where they clashed powerfully, sending a shock wave through the forest.

Kaine felt no agony, no weakness; not any longer. His adrenaline had overridden him. He pushed against the opposing sword with all his might, and he felt the enemy's strength wavering against the primal surge. With an expert maneuver, Kaine turned his rival's blade aside with his own and brought his wounded knee up to slam against his opponent's gut. A gasp of surprise revealed the effectiveness of the impact, and Kaine pushed his newly discovered advantage with a hard downward swing of his blade. He aimed for the hilt of his attacker, trying to knock the short, flat blade out of the crackling hand. The attempt didn't go unanswered, and Kaine's head got a slam from the bunny mask that was hard enough to addle his thoughts. The punishing impact interrupted the momentum of his crushing slice, and he was momentarily lost in a swirl of color and imaginary sounds. His actions were independent of his thoughts, though, and he answered with an equal headbutt of his own, his finely carved forehead protector leading the collision with the smooth mask. The two men were eye to eye, and Kaine's head was dripping blood down over his nose His teeth opened into a ravenous snarl. He was lost in the thrill of battle.

Their swords were held aside, deadlocked and useless against one another's strength. They both made the same choice at the same time: disarm the other. In a convoluted clash of twisting and grasping, the swords eventually crossed together and clanged apart, then again and again until both hands gave out together and their swords were flung in opposite directions. The flying blades were still charged with lightning chakra, and they passed undeterred through two trees a piece before losing their energy and sticking into a third. The synchronization was almost beautiful. Without his primary weapon, Kaine took on a combat stance; it was basic, fists up and feet spread wide. He looked like a prize fighter, bruised and bleeding, while his opponent looked much calmer—at least his mask did.

Kaine went in first, closing the gap with a short dash and a wide punch with his right hand. The mask ducked him and threw a jab into Kaine's gut, hitting right on the wound. He must have smelled the blood there, because it was a perfect hit. It may as well have been the knife making its return, for how much it dizzied Kaine's sight, but his limbs continued to move autonomously. He met the low jab with a knee to the face, sending the other man recoiling backward brutally. The mysterious Anbu's neck might as well have snapped for how hard he fell backward, but he caught himself on his hands and twirled around to stand on two feet again. Kaine thought he could hear heavy breathing, but the beat of his heart pounding in his ears made it difficult to notice anything else. Kaine went on the offensive, pushing his momentum forward and diving for the hem of the fleeing black robe. He caught the fabric in his hands and yanked it, trying to drag the other man close enough for a good hit.

The assassin wisely unclipped the robe and discarded it into Kaine's hand, blowing a quick breath with his chakra to scatter the cloth into the wind in order to obscure Kaine's sight. The mask was fast, feet silent as he flashed around behind Kaine's rear and made an attempt to kick the back of the target's knee and put him on the ground. Kaine picked his foot up instantly, and without seeing the attack coming; instinct took over once more. His strongest capability was bare-knuckle, hard-striking combat between two bodies and their raging muscles.

After narrowly avoiding the strike to his calf, Kaine kicked back down and caught the outreached, kicking ankle beneath his solid boot, pressing the reinforced heel against the joint and slamming himself down as hard as he could. A satisfying crack rang out, and he was _certain _this time that he heard a howl of agony from behind him, muffled by both the mask and the rush of fluid through his own ears. His enemy was broken; Kaine felt the bones give way beneath his stomp, and with a whip of his arm he carried his momentum full circle to rammed his knuckles between the eyes of the rabbit mask. The hard-baked porcelain did not break, but Kaine felt a crack starting to form. His thick gloves were adorned with metal-reinforced knuckle guards, which he slammed against the mask and sent the man wearing it reeling back again. Another strike—this time with the left hand—found a solid impact, deepening the crack. A third, then a fourth; he was alternating hands and pushing his opponent backward. The broken ankle kept the losing man from regaining his footing, and his back hit a tree. With nowhere to go and no way for the impact to be dampened by retreat, Kaine reeled back for a final slam. His right fist directly between the eyes of the sneering rabbit once more. The tree behind the Anbu's head fractured from the impact, and the mask finally gave way to collapse into pieces. The rabbit ears fell in halves to tinkle against one another on the ground.

The face that was revealed was unfamiliar. An unknown, uncared-for lackey of some merchant or politician, no doubt. Kaine was alarmingly high on bloodlust, and after he had broken the mask off the still-living man's face, he took the swollen, beaten head in his hands. His victim was squirming, still barely conscious and trying to lift hands to free himself. It was a feeble attempt. "Bad day," Kaine said to him with a leering smirk. A snap of both hands threw the enemy's head to one side harshly, and the brutal crack of spine signified the definitive end to the fight. A limp body fell to the ground in front of Kaine, and he felt the combat high wear off of himself all at once. The pain set in, the weakness returned, and he fell onto his face. _Need to go,_ he thought to himself. _Never stop. _His hands reached out, finding solid ground. He dragged himself through the rushing stream and to the other side. He crawled, feeling desperate to get away—to be gone before more of them could find him. It wasn't his time to die and he was sure of it, but it felt like it might have been as his vision blackened around the edges. Survival was his birthright. He had the will to carry on living. No matter what happened to him, he intended to live forever. For the sake of having another day alive, he found himself swallowing his pride. He brought his fingers to his mouth and shrieked out a trilling whistle.

* * *

Kakashi was waiting patiently to the north of Monolith Point, perched in a low branch that overlooked a fork in the modest stream. He wondered if the intended message would even be picked up. If Kaine had only been telling Makoto a lie to keep her appeased, this time would have been wasted. Despite the richly detailed personal profile on the missing operative, Kakashi knew very little about the missing man's integrity. He knew about anger issues, above average scores in every area beyond genjutsu, and a penchant for birds; surely there was more to be discovered. As Kakashi thought to himself and the sun got closer to noon, he felt a tremble in the branches and heard a distant crack; the sound of a far off explosion. Explosions meant trouble, so Kakashi switched his priorities and made his way toward its origin.

It took the lone Jonin a while to show up to the aftermath of the battle, but it was a grisly sight when he did. Three bodies, all dressed like Anbu—except the third, though he had previously been wearing the same robe. Whoever had slain them had left them where they fell, eyes still open behind their masks, their wounds exposed to the elements. The odd man out's mask was shattered, his face destroyed, and his neck misaligned sickeningly. Kakashi put himself to the task of laying them peacefully onto their backs and lifting the masks briefly from those who still wore them. He rose the facial shields just long enough to check their appearances and close their eyes, then replaced them. He didn't recognize any of the three, which was a small relief, but had unsettling implications.

By then, it had been at least an hour since the explosion. It was likely that whoever was responsible had gotten far from the scene. Even so, Kakashi had a concern or two to address before proceeding. Biting his thumb to draw blood, he pressed both hands to the soggy dirt and urged a faithful companion to his side. In a puff of smoke, a little brown pug appeared with a tired look in his eyes.

"Whaddya need, boss?" the little dog asked in his deceptively deep voice.

"Pakkun, I want you to carry a message for me. Deliver it to the Hokage and nobody else," Kakashi answered, turning his eye toward the rearranged bodies. "And I need you to ask her a question for me."

Kakashi lifted his headband, employing his Sharingan to study the 'crime scene' and focusing on the disrobed, unmasked individual. The jacket he wore beneath the robe seemed unusual; black around the shoulders with red stripes like overalls racing down to the bottom. The vest was cut off midway; it wasn't like anything he had seen an Anbu agent wear before. "Ask Lady Tsunade why there are Anbu operatives in the area. If she doesn't tell you, then I'll assume the worst."

"The worst...and what's that?" Pakkun grumbled back. The ninja hound looked like he had been shaken out of a pleasant nap, hazed and slow to speech.

"That she didn't send them, and we're dealing with a third party. On top of that, I want you to tell her that the situation is vastly different from what she described to us. The village is calm, the people are safe, and the missing persons seem to have departed of their own free will." Kakashi put his hand to his chin, thinking to himself. Tenzo had probably been awoken and become confused by Kakashi's enduring absence, but circumstances continuously came up that prevented his return.

Pakkun gave a nod, his ears flopping a bit with the motion. "Got it. Anything else?"

"Mm, no, that's all for now. Be careful on the way back; I don't like the looks of this." Kakashi was trying to put pieces of the puzzle together. After he left the notes at the drop-off point a few hours earlier, the silver-haired man had moved immediately to the rendezvous spot described in his coded text. He had hoped to have a private discussion with Kaine, but after finding those three bodies, a peaceful resolution seemed a lot less likely to him. Kaine's anger issues seemed very real, judging by how decimated his opponents had been. The next step was to find where he had gone. That all hinged on the assumption that Kaine was the one responsible.

Fortunately, a rather thick trail of blood stood out against the Sharingan's keen sight; the streak was leading away from the dead. It was easily noticeable as a dense layer of black-red sludge that smeared along, unbroken save for the brief moment where it passed through the stream. The color stuck out brightly, especially so when compared to the dull foliage of late autumn that liberally caked the ground. The trail indicated that somebody was moving slowly but surely; Kakashi hoped that it would lead to a survivor. Whether it was Kaine or somebody else, they would probably be able to provide some necessary information. After making the discovery he wanted, Kakashi closed the lids around his Sharingan and replaced his headband diagonally to preserve chakra.

As Pakkun departed on his own mission with a yip and a jump, Kakashi followed the trail that was left by their fourth man. Kakashi was careful—alert, that is—but the tension he had been feeling all day and night seemed to have diminished from the back of his mind. Perhaps those three strangers were the source of his anxiety all along, and he had been looking in the wrong direction. He couldn't rule out the possibility of there being even more operatives yet in his midst; in fact, he expected them.

Staying attentive and swift, Kakashi followed the bloodline. He came across an open clearing and followed it straight through to the other side, where the trees began again. The blood was getting brighter; some of it hadn't even begun to dry yet. Turning his eye up toward the higher ends of the trees, he discovered that the blood snaked its way up the side of one. Without much warning, the hiss of a kunai sailed through the air, aimed directly at the back of Kakashi's head. The flying blade never reached its target. Its rear, open loop became full by Kakashi's pointer finger, killing its forward momentum and sending it into a spin along his digit. Kakashi sighed, having a good idea of who he was dealing with, now. Without turning, he casually chucked the kunai to the man who sent it, letting it slide easily off of his finger. A groan sounded out along with the noise of pierced flesh, and the treetops shook with the avalanche that Kaine Hamasaki brought with him when he fell. The projectile had sunken into his shoulder, ruining the motion of his arm and preventing him from catching his fall. He slammed onto the dull yellow grass and wailed in defeat.

"Kaine Hamasaki, I presume," Kakashi said, supposing that the distinct blackish blue hair could only belong to his number one priority. It was strange to see him, though. His headband wasn't of the Leaf, nor was it any that he had ever seen. Crudely made of stone and tied by black felt, the symbol matched the one he discovered on the so-named monolith of Monolith Point. Kaine's vest was a dark blue where it wasn't stained with blood. His sword sheathe was empty and many of his weapons had been expended from his pouches, though a few bulges remained. The mounting evidence was all compounded by the fresh wounds along the younger man's body; he was definitely the target of an assassination attempt. Although the bodies near the stream had been fairly gruesome to behold, the state of Kaine himself only looked better because he still had a heartbeat. Kakashi figured that he took it was well as he gave it out; it was hardly the one-sided fight that it appeared to be. Kaine was writhing in pain, but he hadn't stopped moving yet. He had a strong will; Kakashi had to admit that.

"I'm taking you back to the Leaf," he said, but then he paused. In such condition, there was no way that a prisoner could survive such a journey. "On second thought, maybe we should take you to see Makoto," Kakashi corrected himself, intentionally inserting that name to catch Kaine's attention.

With the mention of Makoto, Kaine's eyes shot open with recognition and pointed toward Kakashi. "Y-you set up an ambush for me? You slippery bastard," Kaine spat with pure vitriol. Blood came out, too. It was everywhere, and the fall he had just taken hadn't done him any favors. A useless left arm, a ruined torso and a bruised and bleeding face made him appear non-threatening. He was clutching a scroll in his right hand, and Kakashi recognized it as the one he had left in the tree for the now-wounded, wide-eyed traitor to find. "North of MP...Monolith Point," Kaine sounded out, struggling to make his tongue move the way he wanted it to. "Where the stream f-forks," he said, shuddering.

"Ambush?...No, I wanted to talk with you—I still do. But let's not do it here, and not while you're so close to death." Kakashi knelt down beside Kaine, leaving the kunai sunken into the latter's shoulder to keep his range of motion down while also grasping his right wrist to keep his good arm immobile. Injured or not, Kakashi certainly had no reason to trust a man who wore an unfamiliar forehead protector—and who had just thrown a kunai meant to kill. He hoisted Kaine over his shoulders, not minding the blood that was starting to drench his vest. The rogue ninja was finally out cold, but his shallow breaths indicated life. If nothing else, Kakashi wanted Makoto to realize that he was no longer _Kakashi Hatake, the friend-killer; the cold-blooded assassin._ Something about the way she had looked at him on the rooftop, the way she had shivered whenever they made eye contact—it affected him in ways that he rarely felt anymore. With Naruto and Sasuke away from his care and Sakura stationed with the Hokage, he was finding it easier and easier to slip back into his old self. In defiance of that, he wanted to spare Kaine; to rescue him. Not just because it was part of his mission, but because he wanted to maintain his own soul.

* * *

**Another chapter done. As always, expect an update sooner rather than later. I hope to see you again!**


	6. Akemi Yamaguchi

**Edit: Changed my mind, it's back to Drama. The romance is minor and is implied well enough by that label, I think. With that mentioned, I'd once again like to thank everybody for reading. **

* * *

Akemi Yamaguchi felt like she was going to break a blood vessel when she arrived at the training field that afternoon. It started as harmless confusion, but then the sun ventured past the mark of noon and toward the one o'clock range. Kaine was nowhere to be found, and he had sent his six new recruits to Akemi for their training—and she already had five of her own disciples to look after. She may have been confident, but even she knew that eleven students would be a bit too many for her to help at the same time. She had a relatively small training circle all to herself, but it was almost packed to its brim with the wide-eyed learners who eagerly awaited her instruction. They were all adults, averaging an age of twenty or so, but they looked to Akemi like little children. The other circles were occupied, too. The village had a sizable 'academy,' and each suitable instructor had two or three pupils. Only Akemi and Kaine had more.

So Akemi stood in front of the sum total of their students, hands sassily planted on her hips and lips pursed flat in an attempt to hold back her irritation. Inwardly, she was cursing Kaine's irresponsibility, but she had also had a strange feeling that he was going to shove his duties off on her when he left that morning. _Probably out flirting with his new girlfriend, _she thought. She wasn't jealous; Kaine was more like her brother than anything else. What bothered her was that he was doing something so carefree when there was so much work for him to do. Lifting her balled hand to the front of her mouth, Akemi cleared her throat and opened her pale green eyes.

"Listen up, folks," she called out to get their attention. They had been chatting amongst themselves, introducing each other and sharing whichever topics came to mind. Kaine's six were all from Monolith Point, and Akemi's five were each from different settlements, scattered, small, and lonely. To Akemi, it was especially annoying that Kaine had six, because that meant that even when he was around, he could just palm them off to train in pairs, rather than give them individual assignments for the sake of fairness like his rival was often forced to do. "Some of you already know me, but to the rest, I'm Akemi Yamaguchi. Because of the absence of our mutually beloved lunkhead, Hamasaki, you're all under my care for the day."

The pale skin of her sleeveless arms crossed together at her chest, glowing brightly in the daylight. It was a cool afternoon, but the sun was obnoxiously bright in the clearing compared to the veil that hung over the village proper. She had to fight the urge to squint as it passed further and further into her view from the top of the sky. "I'm going to pair you up and have you test yourselves against one another...but since Hamasaki's an overachiever and has six students instead of five, we've got an odd number." Akemi huffed. "You, what's your name?" Akemi purposefully pointed her brown-gloved finger at the dark-headed woman standing in the front of the huddle.

"Me? I'm Rika. Rika Mori!" Rika offered her common salute, hand on her chest with respect. Akemi sneered, not used to that much formality. That one must not have known Kaine for very long; the respect for authority would probably have totally evaporated by then if she had.

"Rika Mori, then. Come here." Akemi curled a beckoning finger. "Since you look a bit...well, sickly, I'm gonna handle you myself."

Rika whined a bit, mouth clamped shut and her hands dropping stiffly to her sides. She was growing a blush, and Akemi smirked in triumph. "That's what Kaine's always saying to me," Rika said as she lifted her hand up to brush some of the bouncing curls behind her ears. "But he also says I'm making progress. Maybe I can impress you, Akemi-sensei!" She seemed confident, but the aura around her was familiar to Akemi—it was exactly like the smoke-blowing confidence that Kaine showed off all the time. Maybe she had been around him more than expected. He was a great fighter, but Akemi always thought he could be really stupid and difficult to deal with.

"Right, right, whatever." Akemi waved off Rika's confidence as just another business matter. "I hope Kaine's at least taught some basic strikes and parries to his squad. Otherwise, this isn't going to be much fun. It'll be us versus them, guys!" She pumped her fist up, and her five students all copied the motion and grunted with agreement. "You, with you...you two, you two," she began to arbitrarily assign each of Kaine's students to one of hers with hastily pointed fingers. No rhyme or reason went into it; she was ready to be rid of them for a while. Once everybody but Rika had been assigned a training partner, Akemi held her palm out and clapped her fist into it. "No weapons, and no aiming for the face. We're emphasizing body blows and proper blocks today, got it? I may be busy with Rika, but I'll be keeping my eye on you all." She closed one eye, bugging out the other and pulling at the bottom of her eyelid to make a point. Men with men, women with women, men with women; it didn't matter to her. Everybody got equal consideration and opportunity in their village, most especially during training.

Her instructions seemed to be handled well. Though Kaine's bunch looked a bit more ragtag than Akemi's unit, they were surprisingly disciplined. It was especially surprising since they had already missed out on some direct training after she and Kaine had their test. They were handled by another of the instructors during that time, but it wasn't one of their best. At least _that_ absence was one that Akemi couldn't let herself be angry about; it was pretty much her fault, in the end. As the students paired up and ventured to different parts of the dusty circle, Rika was left standing by her lonesome a few paces from Akemi. "Hey, I said come over here," the teacher said with renewed emphasis.

Rika nodded, hopping skittishly through the dirt to stand arm's length from her temporary sensei. "Yes, ma'am!" She said with willing compliance.

"Okay, cut the ma'am. I'm not a ma'am. Akemi, or Aki, or Yamaguchi..._maybe _sensei, but not a ma'am." She decided to get that bit out of the way early on. She didn't feel old enough to be a ma'am. In fact, Rika was probably the same age as Akemi was. With a cursory glance around, she confirmed that the five pairs had bowed to one another and begun their basic training. At least they could be self-sufficient. For all her bluster, Akemi was a horrible trainer in front of a class. She leaned down and put a hand beside her mouth, whispering into Rika's ear. "So, you're the sister of Hamasaki's new girlfriend, right?"

Rika blinked, confused and tilting her head. "Girlfriend? I'm not sure I get what you mean. I thought _you_ were his girlfriend, sensei."

Akemi rolled her eyes. "Hey, don't start with _that_, either. Hamasaki's like a brother to me. What I mean to ask, is: you're the one whose sister is supposed to be sending messages, right?" Akemi bonked Rika on the head with her knuckles, gently but condescendingly.

Rika rubbed her head, more bothered by the disrespect than by the mild thump. "I guess so, yeah. Is that unusual?"

"Unusual's kind of an understatement. Most of the time, we take in stragglers or runaways. Independent sorts, too. You know, people with nobody to look back on. Nobody who'll miss them too bad." Akemi narrowed her eyes, puffing out her lips with exaggerated suspicions. "Why'd you leave your sister behind, huh?"

Rika looked a bit uneasy under the question, scowling and crossing her arms at her tummy defensively. "I don't see why you care, Aki," she replied. She had hoped that using the most informal version of the offered names would convey a sense of undermining; a sly payback for the head bop. Instead, Akemi grinned as if she had sensed some new found kinship growing between them.

"That's more like it," Akemi said with convincing cheerfulness. "I think I like you, Rika; I might have to take you off Hamasaki's hands." Akemi was taller than Rika, and her form was fuller. Otherwise, they both shared a youthful loveliness and good fitness. "How would you like that?"

"I don't think Kaine would like it too much," Rika answered, trying to look stern but smirking devilishly.

"Bah, Hamasaki's no good. He barks, and he bites, but he can't play a game of Shogi to save his life, you get me?" Akemi was only half-serious, working her way into a friendly rapport with the other woman to weasel more information out of her. After the tease, she felt her own brows get heavy with sincere concern. "Really, though...Why would you leave your family behind?"

Rika seemed closed off, even after the playful exchange. "Train me up, and I'll tell you exactly why." She huffed and wore a hardened look that fit a shinobi, even though her plain brown dress didn't have a single weapon or hidden slot to speak of. None of the new recruits had their headbands yet, either, so nothing about her said 'ninja' aside from the determination in her eyes.

"Well, well. You've got some guts to give me an ultimatum, Rika." Akemi sucked in the corner of her lower lip. "Tell you what. We'll make a little wager. A friendly one."

"Sure, I could go for that," Rika answered, letting a smirk return. She was a bit more mischievous than her sister, and she knew it. In the past, Makoto was always there trying to keep Rika out of trouble, but in this village, the elder sister had nobody so innocent to answer to.

Akemi stepped the back of her boot to the white-painted edge of the training circle. With a slow, deliberate arc, she dug her heel into the dirt and carved a smaller arena within the larger one, starting at the outer border and ending on the same point. She then took a stance right in the center of the smaller circle. "Let's see if you've got potential, yeah? If you can land a hit on my face, you're a lot better than I take you for, and I'll give you some of my own training on the side. If you can't hit me, I'll just assume you've got no talent, and then you'd better tell me why you left. To make it easier on you, I won't even step outside of this circle." She tapped the smaller ring with the front sole of her footwear.

Rika smiled kindly, her eyes looking arrogant and her voice sounding the same. The attitude didn't match her fluffy hair and sweet smile. "Fine, shouldn't be a problem." She stepped into the smaller circle as well, spreading her feet and taking on Kaine's outwardly simple fighting pose.

_Oh, this will be easier than I thought,_ Akemi mused. Kaine's stance was terrible for a novice; really, she was even surprised that it worked for the man himself, let alone one of his fresh students. It had so many openings and faults, but somehow he always made it look easy. A self-congratulatory thought crossed her mind: _unless he's fighting me. _"I won't hit back. Just try to land something above my shoulders—and don't get cute; my hair doesn't count. If you pull mine, I'm pulling yours harder. I'll give you until, hmm." Brushing out a long segment of her dusty blonde locks between her fingers, Akemi looked to the sky, taking note of the sun's position. "You've got an hour. Should be plenty of time, right?"

"Right," Rika answered, and then she ran up like Kaine would, complete with a sloppy battlecry. She didn't have the speed or surefooted nature of her superior, but how could she? Rika had been recruited less than a month ago. She only had a handful of training sessions under her nonexistent belt. Akemi almost felt sorry for her, knowing the outcome long before the gap had even been closed. The first attempt was a plain, closed-fist punch to the chin. Akemi batted it away with the back of her hand, sending Rika off course to run straight past her target and out of the circle. She turned around, coming again. This time, she stopped her own momentum to avoid being thrown aside so easily, settling for standing punches. Akemi's provided area was tiny, with barely enough room for a few steps in any direction, but she danced inside it effortlessly.

Each punch was dodged by a casual tilt of the body or a lean of the head. Rika moved like she was drenched in molasses and then set out to harden. To Akemi, she may as well have been standing completely still, even as she exerted all her effort into landing just _one_ hit; just a graze would do. The vastly more skilled instructor even allowed a few teasing hopes, giving Rika a momentary brush with hair or fleeting contact with the raised cloth of her top. It was a confidence builder, if nothing else. Akemi went into the arrangement just wanting to know Rika's motivation; there was never any expectation of actually training the girl. Kaine could handle her when he got back from his impromptu vacation.

Nearly the full hour had passed in a flash, and the other students had worn each other out. They were all watching the spectacle while sitting on their backsides, hands on their knees and sweating all over themselves. By then, Rika was panting and wobbly on her feet, but still standing. She still had no hope of contact. She knew better than to expect a last-second victory, and as she watched the sun she knew that she had less than a minute left. She couldn't give up, though; she really wanted any extra training she could get. The test had only served to prove how much she needed it.

Akemi wasn't even breathing abnormally. Her only sign of discomfort was the occasional squint against the shifting sun. Rika had even tried to take advantage of the shining star by striking from its direction, but it did no good. By sound alone, Akemi could deflect anything thrown at her. She had even closed her eyes a few times. _No wonder Hamasaki's always showboating; it's a lot of fun,_ Akemi thought to herself. Time ticked away, punches found nothing but air, and Akemi took a deep breath to announce her victory—prematurely, but what did a few seconds matter in a situation like that? Just as she stopped to raise her finger and call the contest to a close, she heard a strikingly familiar shriek coming from the sky. It came from Astor, Kaine's most loyal hawk.

The distracting shriek—and more, the implications that accompanied a dispatched hawk—combined with the glare of the sun and took Akemi's mind away from her task for a split second. Through purely bad luck, that split second was exactly how much time it took for Rika's last, flailing smack to strike flat across Akemi's cheek while the latter's guard had been loosened. All ten of the other students gasped in unison, then gulped as they saw the color drain out of Akemi's already-pale face. With halted disbelief, Akemi turned her head from the sight of Astor to instead behold the surprised, almost terrified look on Rika's profile. Silence fell, and while the hawk approached, silence remained. When Astor landed on Akemi's bare shoulder with sharp claws digging in carelessly, all of the annoyance built up over the day boiled over and Minoru's most prized student let out a blood-curdling shriek: _** "**__**Damn it, Hamasaki!"**_

The piercing cry brought most of the training battles around the grounds to a screeching halt, and the rustling of trees could be heard as various creatures of flight abandoned their safe perches to escape the perceived threat. Astor remained, nuzzling his hooked beak against the side of Akemi's face. He was no stranger to her temper tantrums, since they almost always involved the hawk's master in some way. His talons didn't break the skin, but they pinched enough to be the tipping point in Akemi's day that lowered its quality from bad to terrible. The bird trilled at her, spreading his wings and hanging his head forward, trying to emphasize the scroll tied loosely, carefully around his neck by a strip of wire string. "That's just great, Astor," Akemi said to the bird with her lower jaw quivering. She was grinding her teeth together. "Juuust great," she repeated, plucking the scroll from around the hawk's neck and opening it up a bit. It began with 'Hi, Rika!', and Akemi felt another twitch of her brow. "It's for you," she said, exasperated as she tossed the roll to the girl who was apparently going to be receiving more lessons.

Rika blinked, still in shock over landing that final hit. Out of everyone present, she was probably the one who least expected it to happen when it did. "Oh, uh, thanks," she stammered quietly as she caught the scroll and dropped to her knees to open it up and read it. It was from Makoto, and that knowledge brought a bittersweet smile to the raven-haired woman's face. She began to read it silently to herself.

Meanwhile, Akemi was standing in annoyed disbelief. She had just been embarrassed in front of her own students _and _Kaine's. She was probably never going to live it down. Only a few hours ago, she was lecturing that blue-haired simpleton about being arrogant, and there she herself had gone, proving the validity of her own advice by example. "Oh, showboating is so fun," she yammered to herself under her breath, sneering in dissatisfaction.

Akemi was drawn out of her wallowing self-pity by a short gasp from Rika. "Aki," she said naturally, "there's...there's blood at the end of this scroll." She held up the roll, showing the smears of red that acted like a morbid p.s. at the end of Makoto's own writing.

"Blood?" Akemi turned on her heel and rushed over to snatch the message from Rika's hands, opening the whole length of the parchment to take in the bloody missive. _Akemi, _it began. _Ambushed. Wounded. Hiding. Can't move far. Need help. _It was bad. It had to be bad, if Kaine the legendary blowhard had stooped to sending for help. Following the message was a crudely drawn map. Akemi noticed that it was all in red, supposing that he had no other choice but to use his own wound as an inkwell. She felt a tiny ping of guilt in her gut, knowing that he was probably too weak from their own battle to fend off his attackers like he normally could. "Damn it, Hamasaki," she said again, this time more quietly and with worry evident in her tone. While rolling up the scroll, she called out to her gathered students including Rika. "Lessons are done for the day, I have something I need to-"

"That won't be necessary, Akemi," came the smooth voice of Minoru, walking down a set of stairs made of short logs that led to his modest estate. "I shall see to this myself," he continued. He was in his usual blue robe, and the thick black band that covered his blindness and also doubled as a mount for his forehead protector was perfectly in place. He offered out a hand, implying that he should be handed the message. Akemi was surprised to see him, but she didn't protest his offer to take matters into his own hands. She knew that Minoru wasn't like other leaders. He stuck his neck out for his people more often than they did it for him.

Minoru was handed the scroll, opening it up at the waist but keeping his head faced forward and level. "I see," he said as he shut the tube once more; he then handed it back to Akemi. "Please, continue with lessons. I am pleased to see progress being made. Especially by you, Rika Mori. It seems to me that you are more suited to Akemi's methods than to our dear, embattled Kaine's." There was no snark or belittlement in the way he spoke. It was an observation; an honest praise. The man seemed to warm everybody he spoke to, even under unfortunate circumstances.

"I, uh...t-thank you," Rika said with a blush creeping over her, bowing from her place seated on the dirty ground. She had only spoken directly to Minoru once before, when she had first arrived. He had asked for her name and little else. The rest would come later, he had said.

"Once Akemi has dismissed you, I ask only that my quarters are not disturbed in my absence. Otherwise, do as you please. This village is yours as much as anyone's," Minoru said, wearing a calm smile below the broad blackness that was the upper two-thirds of his face. "I shall bring news of Kaine's condition by nightfall. Should fate be on our side, he will be with me when I return. Continue to make me proud, my friends." He gave a bow, his long ponytail swaying in the wind as he turned to walk away from the field. He was in no hurry; either he had faith in Kaine's survival skills, or he expected the worst to begin with. In either case, he was gone as abruptly as he had arrived.

Akemi found herself thumbing the bloody scroll worriedly. She would rather have gone, herself. It may have been stupid for Kaine to go on his own, wounded, to retrieve the messages—but it was even worse for Akemi to let him do it. That was how she saw it, anyway. She should have insisted; should have tailed behind. "You heard him, then. Let's start another round." Akemi clapped her hands together, urging her students up from their break. Most had caught their breath again, but not all. It was still early in the day, and early in their training regimen. A lot more breath would be lost and found again before sundown.

As Akemi was about to bark out another set of orders, Rika voiced a question. "Aki-sensei, isn't Minoru blind?" She asked plainly, not worried about looking foolish or being overheard.

"Yeah, why?" Akemi answered just as plainly.

"How did he read the message?" Rika was standing up from the ground, dusting off her robe.

"Tough to explain, Rika. It's kind of like...well, Minoru sees better than we do. He's not just a blind man; he's something beyond that. He sees the truth in all things. He's why we call ourselves the Village Hidden by Truth." Akemi hummed. Normally, Minoru would give this lecture at the group orientation following the initial stages of training. Akemi wasn't one for protocol anymore than her counterpart Kaine was, though, so she didn't mind foregoing a bit of ceremony. "While the world lives in lies and deceit, we're protected by our truths." She points her thumb to her own headband, carved from stone. The lopsided, flower-esque scratching was shamefully childish, but she had pride in it even so. "Our personal truths give us strength. Minoru sees those truths—that strength—in all of us. And we can trust him, because _his_ personal truth is this village. We are the only thing he cares about. His strength comes from us, you know?"

"That's good," Rika said. Her curiosity wasn't fully sated, but she was starting to smile again. "But don't you think it's strange? How does he see the truth when others can't?"

Akemi smirks, winking to the other woman. "I don't really know. That's why he's the boss, see? He's got something he's willing to share with us. All he asks for in return is loyalty and respect."

"He's a good man, isn't he?" Rika asked, seeming to know the answer already.

"One of the best," Akemi replied. "Let's get back to work. You won our wager, fair and square—and I'll find some way to make it up to you if you never, ever mention it to Hamasaki."

"If I don't, somebody else will, don't you think?" Rika laughed as she talked, covering her mouth to hide the broadness of her smile.

"We'll see about that," Akemi said back with a pound of her fist into an open palm. While she was distracted by Rika's inquiry, the pupils had remained seated. "Alright, everybody! Back to work! The day is young!" The students all scrambled to their feet, resuming their conditioning. In the back of Akemi's mind, she knew Minoru was the most capable of them all. Still, she wanted to be there to see Kaine safe with her own eyes. The guilt was growing as she thought of how much pain he must have been in. Astor was still on her shoulder; Kaine must have ordered him to stay. Another bad sign. Was it so dangerous that he didn't even want to risk the hawk's presence?

* * *

_Another night, and another session of pure agony and loneliness. Flames licked at the air around him and black smoke stifled his lungs. Barely even old enough to walk, he soldiered on. Even before he could speak, before he could comprehend words, he knew that he was meant to live. His purpose was unclear, but his need for life was insurmountable. With no food in his stomach or water to wet his throat, he carried himself forward on two tiny feet._

Once again, Kaine Hamasaki awoke in a hospital, but this one was unfamiliar. Its walls and floor were clean and white, the bed comfortable and made of feathers and cotton sheets. His eyes were wide and his pupils tiny points against his blue irises. He was covered in sweat and he turned his head to determine what had happened. The pain this time was worse than before; more than just his gut killed him. He felt bruises and lumps all up and down his back, stinging holes in his knee and arms, and a particularly nasty weakness in his shoulder. He remembered bits and pieces; three attackers. He won the battle. He called for Astor, wrote a message for help...and then blackness took his memories.

When his head groggily turned, much slower than he had planned, a most unexpected but welcome sight greeted him. "I know those eyes," he slurred out. Makoto was seated in a chair beside him, a book open in her lap and her head turned down to read it.

"Oh! Mister Kaine, don't try to-" she tried to warn him, but he was already trying to get up from where he was lying. He tried to move his right hand, but it wouldn't budge. So he tried the left, and it was identically immobile. He moved to kick his feet, but his legs were barred. As his vision returned to him, he looked up, and then down. Shackles; shackles made of wood. "-move," Makoto finished after he feebly tried to make his escape.

Panic set in for a moment. This was his fear; to be caged, immobile. Forced under somebody else's will. But Makoto was there; had she been responsible all along? He looked to her, narrowing his eyes and starting to snarl. Before he spoke, another voice interrupted his thoughts. "Don't move too much. You're in terrible shape. The doctors say you're a miracle, surviving so much blood loss and trauma." Kaine turned his head the other way, away from Makoto to find the source.

This was a man, a bit stocky with a bizarre faceplate framing his head. He had the Leaf symbol carved into it, and his eyes were wide. Deep black. A little bit frightening, really. Under the right lighting, anyway. "And don't get any ideas about breaking out. This isn't your average wood." The odd-looking man held his hand up, and from each finger sprouted a rod of timber, one of them shaped into a very specific key pattern. Wood Style? Kaine thought he must have been dreaming. "We need you conscious, preferably healthy. There are a lot of things we want to ask you."

"Who...are you?" Kaine struggled out.

"Call me Tenzo," the man answered, retracting his wooden extensions and setting his hands in his lap. Kaine saw that there were flowers on the window sill that overlooked his location. He recognized the upper end of the monolith. He hadn't been taken far at all, then. Good. His message might still be of some use to his people. "What happened to you?" Tenzo asked.

"Tch, isn't it...obvious?" Kaine paused to breathe, having far less capacity in his lungs than he thought. "Got attacked, ngh...by your people." He was raising his head from his pillow, trying to get in Tenzo's face but failing miserably. Those wooden shackles held quite well indeed.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, kid. Those weren't our people," came a third voice from a far corner of the room. This one was instantly familiar.

"Kakashi Hatake," Kaine said through tightly clenched teeth. "It was all you, wasn't it?"

"If I wanted you dead, would I bring you here?" Kakashi closed a book he had been reading as well; a later entry in the same series that Makoto had open in front of her.

"If you wanted me to talk, sure," Kaine reasoned, struggling fruitlessly against his bonds. "So what do you want to know?" Speaking with contempt, he seemed to be finding his voice quite well, despite his condition.

"Not now, Kaine Hamasaki. You shouldn't even be awake yet. Besides, I have more reading to do," Kakashi answered nonchalantly.

The ninja's laid back attitude was already ticking Kaine off. He was being held prisoner, and all his captor could think about was reading a book? He turned his head to Makoto, and she was sneaking glances at Kaine while trying to hide it, skimming over the pages of her own material. She wasn't very far into it. He must not have been out for very long. Again, Kaine was about to say something rude to the girl, but she spoke up first. "I know it hurts, and y-you probably don't like being held like that, but...I can r-read to you if you want?" She held up the book, and her honest intentions all but melted the anger away.

Kaine allowed himself to smile, defused and totally without strength. "You know what, Makoto? That sounds fantastic," he said weakly, putting his head back down on his pillow and closing his eyes. He couldn't make an escape attempt until he was healed, and he knew it. He could think of no better way to pass the time than being read to by that woman, either. All he had to do was pretend that he wasn't bound in chains, being overseen by two enemy shinobi, and so wounded that it was painful to even blink. That wasn't so difficult as he honed in on Makoto's voice. She had begun reading aloud, and it was strangely soothing to him; distracting in a pleasant way. The story itself, he found quite boring—the narrator, though, was so compelling that he listened to every word until he fell back into a calm sleep.

* * *

**That's it for now. Another update is always around the corner!**


	7. Kakashi vs Minoru?

**Thanks again, everybody.**

* * *

Time had been passing slowly that day. With Kaine unconscious and Makoto being so insistent on continuing to read aloud anyway, there was a peaceful feeling in the medical room. Tenzo was dutifully keeping an eye on the solid wood harnesses that kept the prisoner bound to his bed, and Kakashi was keeping a close eye on Makoto, the other wild card. She had insisted on being allowed into Kaine's room to help him recover. The doctors knew her well; she had lived in the relatively small town throughout her entire life, so she was easily trusted. Since her family's inn had slowed down, Makoto had offered support to other businesses to pass the time. She wasn't exactly a nurse, but she had proven that she knew how to soothe an aching man to sleep, so her presence counted for something.

Kakashi was impressed by her ability to calm the rowdy Kaine, and though he was originally against the idea of letting her sit at his side, he grew to see no harm in it—provided that she had watchful supervision. There could be no telling what she might do if she were left alone with the man. She seemed naive and easy to convince, so leaving her alone with any prisoner at all would be a bad idea—the concern was compounded by the obvious fondness she had for him. Tenzo and Kakashi had nothing important to do until Kaine was well; the nearly-dead man was their only lead on the situation, and the information he carried was vital to the success of their mission. There seemed to be no reason to kick her out, since they had nothing but time to kill and she was lively company.

"I'd like to take a walk," Kakashi said as he once again closed a book. Despite all of the tension over the past few hours, things had gotten to be quite lazy after bringing Kaine back. Thinking back, Kakashi knew he should have brought more reading materials, but he only had so much room in his pouches. Weapons were important; stationary and rations, too. Even knowing that the mission was going to be long, he had neglected to consider that it would also be dull. Tsunade's description was entirely different from what he had discovered on his arrival. Aside from his books, he had also spent enough time reading over the files of the dead to be rather familiar with many of them.

"I'll keep watch, then," Tenzo answered to Kakashi. The wood user had the important job. If Kaine somehow escaped his bonds, things would get ugly. Tenzo had it in him to keep the cuffs sturdy and splinter-free no matter how hard they were raged against. Kakashi also knew that either of the Leaf ninja could lay the bruised and battered rogue down by force if necessary, but it would spare Makoto a great amount of grief if it never came to that. "And Kakashi? Don't go too far. We wouldn't want our friends to launch an ambush on you, too," Tenzo reminded.

"I'll be fine," Kakashi assured his comrade. There were a few guesses as to who had attacked Kaine: Mist Anbu were high on the list, but so were mercenaries, bandits, and possibly even assassins from Kaine's own supposed village. When Kakashi found him, Kaine was wearing what was clearly a shinobi's forehead protector, but it was not one that matched of any villages that he had ever seen. The headband was removed from Kaine and placed into a drawer along with many of his other belongings, all awaiting inspection.

"Don't be gone too long," Tenzo once again spoke up. "If he wakes up again, he'll probably be looking for you."

"Wonderful," Kakashi replied. "I'm not going far. Just a perimeter check, is all." The truth of it was that Kakashi had been getting that sinking feeling again. He felt pressure around the village, but he had to admit that it was not identical to the way he had felt on first arrival. This was something new; something easier to stomach but harder to fully ignore. Somebody had to be out there, and Kakashi had the intention of finding him. He left the hospital with his hands in his pockets and his head down, looping around the building in a steady walk to leave the town and enter the thick growth that surrounded it.

He stepped unusually hard and felt leaves and sticks crunch under his sandals. The noise was intentional; he was being careless, trying to lure the ears of an opportunist—trying to bait out an assault. If Kaine had been a victim of circumstance, then Kakashi wanted to have his own crack at the lurkers. The largest and most obvious mistake made in the fight was that Kaine had neglected to leave one of the assassins alive. Kakashi had covered the dead with ample supplies of fallen leaves; proper graves could be dug later. He had hoped to find scouts in search of their missing men, but what he found instead as he walked toward the site of the ambush was a single male figure standing over the trio of leaf piles. They were marked with vertical sticks as a warning that something was lying beneath. Kakashi stopped, his brow flexing seriously as he hopped silently to his left, placing a tree between his body and the line of sight of the peculiar visitor.

The man was dressed in blue from shoulders to toe, and even from the distance, Kakashi could see that he covered his eyes with a strip of cloth. For Kakashi, it was difficult to tell much more from where he had stopped, but he was in a situation of great sensitivity; to be seen was to risk losing his advantage. Kakashi stepped his foot against the side of his hiding-tree and carefully pressed his chakra into a hold against its bark. He walked up, getting higher and higher until he was above all but a few branches. The leaves had gotten thinner and thinner each day, and the bugs of warm weather were rapidly giving in to the dry, cold air of autumn. The change sucked the healthy green off the branches of the forest. It was more difficult to find coverage that way, but not impossible.

Kakashi took his high route and inched his way closer to where he had last seen the strange man. It took a few leaps and bounds, but he found himself with a good vantage point behind the man, overlooking him from above and concealed by a spiderweb pattern of branches and leaves. A hole the size of a pin prick revealed the forest floor, and Kakashi could see his target all alone through it. The other man was looking at the haphazard graves, not turning his head and not kneeling down. He was simply standing there in silence; completely without motion.

Suddenly the man in blue threw his arm back, a kunai on the end of his fingers being launched by a swift hand directly toward the place where Kakashi's vision slipped through. With a momentary startle, Kakashi tilted his head aside and narrowly avoided the loss of his eye as a steel arrowhead flung past him and thunked into a branch further behind. He had obviously been detected, but he was having difficulty determining how. A few possibilities rung through his mind, but it was no use to run them all off if he had already been attacked. Instead of making a run for it, Kakashi boldly stepped down from his perch, finding grooves between the trees to pass through and find stability on the forest floor. He was a few steps behind his attacker, but a further attempt was not immediately made by either of them.

"You're good," came a voice that rubbed Kakashi wrong. It was smooth and kind, but it had an edge to it. Something about that man had reminded Kakashi of Orochimaru. The open charisma; the unwavering confidence. "This place is rife with conflict," the man continued. "Aren't the shinobi of the Leaf meant to prevent such turmoil in the Land of Fire?"

Kakashi wasn't rising to the bait. Instead, he was scrutinizing; looking for familiarities. Nothing was immediately recognizable against the man's loose robe, and his hair was long and black. He could have been anybody. "Who are you; why are you here?" Kakashi inquired pointedly. No sense wasting time; questions had to be asked before they could be answered.

"My family calls me Minoru, and I am here to ask you a question." came the reply as he pivoted on one foot to face Kakashi. He bore a forehead protector like Kaine's. It was carved into a crude and jagged piece of stone with one flat side facing front. His symbol was different; a heart that looked entirely too fanciful. He kept his hands together beneath the sag of his sleeves, looking like a nobleman but seeming dangerous in other ways. Kakashi didn't like the way Minoru's blindfold blocked most of his face. Its coverage extended down past the nose and to the middle of the upper lip. That ambiguity made him look like a man with a lot to hide.

"A question? And what's that?" Kakashi replied, feet parted and knees bent. He wasn't in an open fighting position, but he was prepared for another sneak attack.

"What is your personal truth?" Minoru asked through a calm smile. He was looking rather smug even as his nigh-immaculate robe was flecked with bits of crumbled leaf.

"My personal truth?" Kakashi humored him, but he was still on edge. The way it looked to him, Minoru was speaking like a sociopath. He chose aromatic words to confuse and manipulate.

"When you awake in the morning, what are you thinking of? Tell me your very first, entirely naked thoughts. I'd like to know what convinces a man like you to get out of bed live his life." Minoru probed again, trying to get into Kakashi's head. He wanted to pick the Jonin apart; to look for a weakness.

"You're wasting time, Minoru," Kakashi answered. He wasn't in the mood for such a convoluted game. "Something brought you out here, and I doubt it was your curiosity."

"Hmm, how sharp you are." Minoru took his hands apart, dropping his arms to his sides and letting his sleeves hang down to cover his fingers. "You're right. I do have another question: is there a man named Kaine Hamasaki in one of these three graves?" He smirked knowingly. "I strongly suspect that the answer is no."

"Kaine Hamaski is recovering from injuries, and is under our care," Kakashi answered. "What business do you have with him?"

"He is my hand...My left hand, to be precise," Minoru said whimsically. He lifted his right arm, bending it at the elbow until his sleeve fell away from his hand. "Without him, I feel incomplete." He made a show of keeping his left arm limp and useless. "Surely you can understand why I would want him back."

"He's in no condition to be going anywhere. And even if he were, I wouldn't let you have him." Kakashi reached to his thigh, freeing a long kunai from one of his holders. "He's a shinobi of the Leaf, no matter what you may have tried to convince him of."

Minoru smirked and apparently took the drawn weapon as a declaration of war. He struck first, moving like a flash to close the gap between himself and Kakashi. He lunged like a cobra, the fingertips of his right hand aimed for Kakashi's throat right off the bat. Kakashi was no slouch; Minoru's attack found nothing but air and whirling debris. The copy ninja circled around Minoru's forward momentum with untraceable quickness, aiming a jab of his kunai toward the blue robe's lower middle. Minoru perceived the attack coming and turned to reach his hand down behind him, managing barely to grab Kakashi by the outstretched wrist, and then attempted to twist his opponent's arm into a hold. Kakashi responded by jumping with a harsh, wrenching momentum, throwing off Minoru's process and rending his arm free of the stranger's grasp before landing on his feet nimbly against the side of a nearby tree. Kakashi stood horizontally, braced for another round and reaching his hand up to begin removing the angle of his headband. He was ready to unveil his Sharingan.

Kakashi was stopped by a laugh from Minoru. "You are astoundingly skilled," the latter said. Kakashi took his hand down, leaving his eye covered. No sense revealing his trump card too early. "Relax, my friend. I know who you are, now." Minoru moved his hands back into a crossed position in front of his waist. "Kakashi Hatake. I can see your personal truth already." The bite in Minoru's voice was uncharacteristic. He looked as if he had gotten a taste of something toxic. "You are the Leaf's favored assassin; cold-blooded and merciless. You awake each day imagining the death of your next target. Isn't that right?"

Kakashi was unfazed. "You presume too much," was all he said on that matter. "You're not getting Kaine from us," he asserted to change the subject. This wasn't the first time an enemy had tried to manipulate his pain, and it would not be the last. Though he had his own concerns, he was not some novice like Kaine must have been. Combat did not mix well with negative emotions.

"We will see," Minoru said. "Because the truth is inescapable. We all have moments that define us, don't you agree?"

"And what is your moment, Minoru?" Kakashi asked, steering the situation.

"My moment is now; it is all around us.," Minoru said, cryptically. His head did not turn, but his hands gestured to his surroundings in broad strokes.

"Poetic," Kakashi replied, still quite unimpressed. "My point remains. Kaine is staying with us because he is one of our own."

"Oh, I think you will find that you are quite mistaken. When you learn the truth, I think you will return him to me willingly." Minoru offered a bow of his upper body, his hair swinging down over his side as its length was teased by wind. "You are correct in saying that he is too injured to return. I hope that when he recovers, you will release him...He hates to be caged."

"So we've learned," Kakashi responded with a wry humor. "He must be difficult for you to control."

Minoru let forth with a restrained scoff. "I don't control him. If I did, he never would have come this far for a woman...We try to teach our children, but they often struggle to learn the important lessons, don't they?" The blindfolded male shook his head, smiling woefully. "Kaine has opened up an entirely new complication for me."

"We can settle it here and now, Minoru. I'm right in front of you," Kakashi said as if it were a necessary reminder. He still had his fresh, bloodless kunai gripped in his hand. Their first engagement had been a draw, but he had already learned quite a bit about his opponent. The next time they clashed, Kakashi would certainly have the edge.

"There is nothing more that I can say or do. Your mind is clear. Kaine is in your capable hands for now, Kakashi Hatake." Minoru seemed honest, though his tone of superiority remained. "Kaine's call for help looked quite urgent. Akemi and Rika will no doubt be glad to hear that he still lives." Minoru purposefully said both names, hoping to find some sort of recognition.

"I see." Kakashi said as he tucked his kunai back into his pant leg, releasing the grip of his chakra from the side of his tree and dropping lightly onto the ground. The fight was clearly over. "And does Rika have a message for her sister?"

"She will surely send one herself, when the time is right." Minoru answered with a wave of his hand. "I am told that their relationship is rather complicated."

"I hope she doesn't intend to deliver it by herself, when that time comes. It has been dangerous in these woods, lately," Kakashi hummed in response. "Maybe that's why you sent in a clone?"

Minoru seemed mildly shocked by that accusation, but only for the barest of moments. His smirk had tugged into the beginning of a frown, but only for long enough to be seen as a twitch. The faintest crack in his guise. "Impressive."

"I know your type, Minoru. You have a lot to hide, but I can see it in you: you wouldn't risk being dethroned from your growing empire for the sake of one runaway." Kakashi had become certain of a few things by that point, but none of them could be proven—not yet, and certainly not by a clone. "I'll be watching over Kaine...Do keep in touch," Kakashi said, bringing his hand to his forehead and bidding Minoru off with a casual salute, two fingers pointed out.

"We will meet again," Minoru answered smoothly, no longer rattled. Rather than simply dispel his clone, he turned to walk away from Kakashi. There was no sense in pursuing a confirmed clone; more likely than not, to follow him would be to walk into a trap. Kakashi decided to let him leave, and when he was deep enough into the trees to be out of sight, the Leaf ninja made his way back to the hospital with renewed quickness.

He entered through the window, not bothering to follow through the lobby and halls. Tenzo and Makoto both burr'd momentarily as the cold air wafted into the room following behind Kakashi's entrance, but the window was shut immediately after. Tenzo looked at Kakashi's haggard vest, now poked and prodded by twigs. "Did you get into trouble, Kakashi?"

"Nothing I couldn't deal with on my own," Kakashi answered back. "How is our guest doing?"

"He hasn't moved or made a sound," Tenzo replied. Makoto had even stopped reading by then, seen to be sitting worriedly in her chair and wringing her hands together.

"Good, because we've had a vistor," Kakashi answered, then announced. "He called himself Minoru, and he was wearing a forehead protector that's a lot like Kaine's, here. At very least, I think we've found our evidence to prove the existence of a new Hidden Village. He also mentioned Makoto's sister, Rika, by name."

Makoto perked up, ears blushing red as she turned to look at Kakashi. "He mentioned Rika? Is she okay? Did she get my message?" She was speaking quickly, taking on features of a squirrel as she chittered.

Kakashi blinked, leaning back a little bit as Makoto stood up and got closer. "He didn't say much. Just her name, and then he said that she will write back when the time is right." He put a hand on Makoto's head, both to pat her with reassurance and to bind her from pressing in any closer. "Why not go back to the inn with your family? Tenzo and I will let you know if Kaine wakes up." Kakashi didn't really know why he was giving her so much consideration. Kaine was a traitor and a prisoner. Having an innocent like Makoto involved could only make matters complicated and troublesome. Kakashi's hands felt tied, though; they were guests in a secluded village, and Makoto had been helpful so far.

"No, I'm staying here. They're going to be fine without me; our honored guests are here already, right?" Makoto gestured to Kakashi, Tenzo, and then the unconscious Kaine.

"If you say so," Kakashi said, knowing he wouldn't get anywhere by debating.

So long as she didn't try to help Kaine escape, everything would be fine.

* * *

"No, no...Put your legs into it more!" Akemi called to one pair of students who each seemed to be going through the motions, and little else. They had been practicing since an hour past noon, and they were still on the training field after total sundown. Though Akemi was barking out orders with pride, she was growing unsettled by the lowering sun. She was constantly glancing toward the horizon. "You're no good if you don't follow through. Don't aim at the stomach, aim behind it!" She was smacking her fist into her open palm as she often did, emphasizing the sound of a good, solid connection.

Rika was at Akemi's side, worn out and toppled onto her flat back. She didn't have the endurance of some of the rest, but at least she had made an honest effort. Basic training was arguably the hardest part of the regimen; getting a body used to strenuous activity made it a lot easier to fine tune skills later on, but every amateur wanted to get right to the flashy jutsu and water-walking. Academy students oftentimes neglected the importance of the fundamentals, and it was even worse when the training hadn't started until later in life. Akemi couldn't just stand by and let that ignorant perspective spread to Kaine's soldiers, so she took it upon herself to drill her philosophies down as deep as they would go. Even if she had to push aside some of the filler already in place, she was going to make them respectable.

To her, though, Rika seemed to already be a lost cause. "I hope you know that hit you got was nothing but luck," Akemi whispered to Rika as she dropped down to sit on her own ankles, knees out in front of her.

Rika was exhausted. Her face was dripping sweat, her eyes were barely open, and her arms and legs were shivering like they were trying to escape. She answered through heavy gulps of air, grabbing at every molecule of oxygen which she could, in order to desperately replenish her screaming muscles. "Luck or not, you're all mine now," she said with a cheerful grin through the struggle. Even though she had already been worked down to the bone, she had enough energy to flaunt her stolen victory. "Even Minoru thinks it's a good idea, right?"

Akemi sneered, but she did it with her head turned away. "Yeah, well...can't argue with the boss, can we?"

"You could if you wanted to," Rika countered.

"Maybe you could, but it's not a good idea. Arguing with Minoru doesn't get you anywhere; he's just got this way of making you doubt all your own brilliant plans." Akemi rolled her eyes. Still turned away, of course.

"Which of your brilliant plans did he talk you out of, Aki?" Rika's attention was more focused, now. She had found something she wanted to know.

"Let's not talk about that, okay?" Akemi turned back, putting on a cheerful expression that was overblown with purpose.

"Oh, so you can pry about my sister but I can't ask about your plans?" Rika teased, lifting a wobbly arm to poke Akemi's hip.

"That's right," Akemi retorted, gently batting the poking finger away. "Because I'm your boss, now. I get to make the rules."

"Just because you don't question _your _boss, doesn't mean I won't question mine, remember?" Rika struggled with a mighty grunt to lift herself up, hinging at the waist. Once she was upright, she crossed her legs to sit comfortably and get her hair out of the dirt.

Akemi huffed, "Well, I was talking generally. I never said it happened to me, just that...you know, it happens." She crossed her arms and watched the remaining sparring matches. Everybody seemed like they were winding down; in fact, her training circle was the last one that had any activity. The other instructors had called it a day when the sun fell below the tree line. "Hey! I said no hitting in the face!" Akemi sprung up, pointing at the one who had seemingly violated the rules.

"I didn't aim for the face, he just fell over onto my fist!" came the confused reply.

"Erm...well, obviously you're _both_ doing something wrong, then." Akemi sat back down, tapping her fingertip against her forearm impatiently and then heaving a sigh. "Let's call it for tonight and start again tomorrow, everyone," she said through a great effort. They weren't getting any further in their condition, but she hated to end the session before Minoru's return. There were sighs of relief and sounds of collapsing bodies hitting caked dirt all around the circle following the call. Panting breaths filled the night air as a chill set in to wick the perspiration away from the collective brows of the trainees. A few minutes passed after the announcement was made, and the myriad students began to pick each other up and leave the grounds. Rika and Akemi stayed behind, sitting together and looking to the sky where stars were beginning to show.

"Do you think Minoru ran into trouble, Aki?" Rika leaned back onto the ground again. She gathered up her hair and pushed it to the front of her shoulders, then cupped her hands behind her head as a pillow.

"Even if he did, it won't stop him. It never does." Akemi answered, completely faithful.

"How long have you known him?" Rika turned her head to the side, looking up at her instructor.

"A long time. Longer than anybody else—even longer than I've known Hamasaki." Akemi yawned. It had been a long day, and it was still getting longer for her.

"Is Minoru your brother, too? Like you said Kaine is?"

"No, he's...more like a father. He keeps us safe, and gives us a place to come home to. He tells us where to find food and gives us just enough freedom to keep us happy." Akemi said thoughtfully, a hand tucked under her chin.

"So you're happy here?" Rika pondered, turning her head back to the sky.

"I'm happier than I was before I came here, and that's what matters." Akemi answered, closing her eyes and taking in a deep breath through her nose. The night air smelled good. It wasn't humid like it had been a week or two prior; the change of the seasons had come about quickly and the trees were reacting in a hurry. Akemi liked things to be dry, so she savored a moment to really enjoy the climate.

"But not _happy_, happy?" Rika seemed troubled.

"We live in a bad world, Rika. Being perfectly happy isn't always an option, you know?" Akemi rubbed her hands over her knees.

"It should be, though. Shouldn't it?" The black-haired woman didn't seem to understand Akemi's reservations.

"Why did you leave, Rika?" Akemi asked again, trying to avoid the depths of her own thoughts.

"I'll tell you someday, but you haven't finished training me yet," Rika said.

"Fine; if you won't answer that one, then how about this: why do you want _me _to train you so badly? What's wrong with Hamasaki?" Akemi quipped back.

"Well, Kaine's never really here. You at least get things done, even if you're more strict." Rika was the one who yawned this time.

"Tch, I always figured _he_ was the really strict one." A few memories replayed in Akemi's mind, and her pondering smile turned into a flat purse of her lips as she came to a hindsight realization. "Yeah, well...he's just been slacking off more than usual nowadays, so I kind of look mean by comparison." It was a good enough rationalization for her, so she left it there.

"Uh huh, that must be it," Rika said with a huff of amusement.

Akemi was about to speak up again, but she looked toward the edge of the field and spotted Minoru's silhouette against the pale relief of the moon. He was alone, and that was unnerving. Akemi hopped up, Rika calling out to her in surprise before seeing Minoru herself and covering her mouth.

Before all else, Minoru defused the worst of it by speaking first. "He's alive, Akemi. Alive, but seriously hurt. He is in the custody of Leaf shinobi, and his recovery is in progress."

Akemi was about to sigh in relief, but then she narrowed her eyes accusingly. "Wait, he's in custody and you just left him there? I thought you said you were going to bring him back with you."

"Fate was not on our side, today. That is all there is to it, Akemi. I am sorry that I could not do more, but it was not a fight that I could win on my own. For now, he is in their hands, but he will come back to us one way or another. That is a promise that I am making to you here and now." Minoru reached his hand up to cup Akemi's cheek, and she lost a lot of the tension that had been building up.

"Alright, I forgive you then...but he had better come back soon; I'm already tired of his students." Glancing over her shoulder, Akemi looked at Rika sitting on the ground twiddling her thumbs. "Except that one; Rika's good," she said with a wink toward the other girl.

"I see. I can have the others dispersed among the remaining instructors until Kaine's safe return, if you like." Minoru gave a courteous nod.

"Hmph, that won't be necessary. Hamasaki's an idiot, but I wouldn't want to see his students suffering with inferior training just because he did something stupid like get captured," Akemi said. She didn't seem to care that Minoru was the one she was speaking to, even as she spoke poorly of her compatriots. Judging by the robed man's knowing smile, he must have at least partially agreed with her anyway.

"Very good. Stay the course, then. I have work I need to do, but please have a good night, both of you." Minoru bowed, and then stepped past Akemi to reach the roughshod steps that led to his personal quarters. Akemi watched him climb them, and then looked over to Rika who was flexing her mouth to one side of her face, one eyebrow raised.

"So he just...left Kaine behind?" Rika asked, whispering so as to avoid being heard.

"Probably as punishment for getting caught in the first place," Akemi said with a nod. "He'll be back, sooner or later. Whether he breaks out, or we go to get him ourselves, he's coming home."

"How long do we wait before we go after him?" Rika asked with a tilt of the head.

"Well, only Minoru actually knows where they've got him held, so we can't go until he orders it. He knows better than to tell me where; I would've already run out to get the idiot home if I knew how." Akemi said it with a sheepish smirk, admitting her brashness.

"Minoru says he's okay though, right?" Rika asked.

"Yeah, and that's good enough for me," Akemi said back. "I just wish he would come back and take some of these people off my hands."

"But you told Minoru that-"

Akemi replied, cutting Rika off with a lifted hand. "I wasn't lying; I really don't want his students to get jumbled up with the rest of the crowd. I just wish he'd come home and handle them himself."

"Except me, right?" Rika had a challenging, cheeky grin. She was still riding on the residual high of her lucky win.

"Mm, I'm contractually obligated to say that you're right," Akemi said, then scrunched her face, looking displeased. She reached her hand up to ruffle into Rika's curls, splaying them all over the place. Both of them smiled, but they each had their own concerns. It was bad enough to think that Kaine was missing, but to learn that he had been attacked and then _captured_ brought an entirely different layer of anxiety into to the fold of an otherwise calm, cool night.

"Get some sleep, Rika; we're going to work harder tomorrow," Akemi said as she took her hand away from Rika's hair, dropping her arm to her side. She looked radiant in the moonlight; it seemed more like her natural habitat than the blazing sun did. Pale skin and light hair were complimented nicely by the blue-white aura that bathed the clearing.

"Alright, sensei," Rika responded, standing upright and struggling to make her legs carry her into the living area. As the student vanished into the night, Akemi collapsed into a heavy heap on the ground, her brow tense and eyes worried. She couldn't sleep even if she tried; too much had happened that day, and too much was going to happen on the next.

* * *

Untouched by the moon, a dark green snake slithered along the abyssal forest floor, pushing aside dry dirt and leaving a wavy trail behind. An unseen hand clutched the reptile around the base of its jaw, plucking it from its path and squeezing firmly to force its jaws open. It slithered and hissed, but whoever had captured it had done so with a purpose. A pair of long metal tweezers dipped down its throat, and with a slick sound, a tiny slime-covered roll of paper was plucked out and unfurled. _The evaluation team is__ dead,_ the note read. _Need new orders. _The concealed hand crumpled the parchment into a ball and dropped it. The entire message dissolved quickly, emitting an acidic vapor as it vanished into the forest floor. The remainder was stamped flat by a heavily booted foot.

* * *

**Next update coming soon. **


	8. Two Weeks

**Here, have some more!**

* * *

_Again he fought to take steps. He knew it was a dream, but he was walking forward with some final destination in his soul. He could not explain to himself why he had survived so many times. He did not even know why he had wanted to. Some voice called to him from beyond the smoke and mist, a voice that he thought must have been his. _

Kaine awoke to the aroma of something pungent and vile. His eye crept open and he looked down to his lap. There was a hospital-style tray resting on top of him, and with a huff of air passing into his lungs, he realized that it no longer hurt for him to breathe. The smell was from the bowl of slop provided as his lunch, which had gone untouched. He opened both eyes, heavy with sleep, and shook his head. He tried to put his hands to the bowl, but with a frustrated groan he felt the resistance of his bindings. That much hadn't changed, but his wounds were hardly a tickle within him.

"Ngh," he said as he tried to speak and nothing coherent came out. That felt familiar, as did the water that was brought to his mouth by Makoto's dutiful hand.

"You're awake again! I was getting worried, this time," Makoto said as she tilted the cup aggressively, nearly drowning her patient under the generosity. Kaine gagged a bit as water dribbled out of the corners of his mouth and he coughed some up. "You've really been out a long time, Mister Kaine."

Kaine smacked his lips, groaning again as he contorted his body through its limited range of motion. While his hands and feet were shackled by wooden chain links, he could flex his back, shoulders and thighs well enough to feel the relief of mounting tension being pushed out. "How long is a long time?" He asked drearily, his vision still foggy from disuse.

"Oh, about...two weeks, has it been?" Makoto had her fingertip pressed to her chin in thought.

"Two weeks? Damn it all, how could I have been out for two weeks?" He raged against his captivity, shaking the bedframe that the timber was latched onto.

"You're lucky to be alive, Kaine," came Tenzo's voice from a chair beside the bed. He was seated comfortably with his arms crossed in his lap and his eyes shut.

"I get that a lot," Kaine bit back. He had a strong feeling that two weeks had certainly gone by; nothing else could explain why he hadn't felt any pain as he awoke. He was fully healed, and the tickling discomfort was just his pent-up need for action. "Now cut me loose."

"Not so fast," Tenzo replied, pushing himself to stand out of his chair. He leaned his mouth in close to Kaine's ear, whispering with his hand cupping one side of his own face. "You tell us what we want to know, and I'll loosen your bonds a bit."

Kaine rolled his eyes. "Loosen? That sounds like a pretty conservative reward for cooperation." He fought against his prison; it nearly gave way under his strength, but Tenzo's constantly flexed hand was working to repair any damage that might have been done. It wasn't the sort of contraption that would weaken over time. If anything, all the struggling only convinced the jailor to make it stronger.

"There's a lot we need to know." Tenzo sat back down, sighing as the chair groaned beneath him. "For starters, why did you stop sending reports back to us?"

Kaine chuckled, looking over to Makoto as if to calm himself. It was no use being sly or indignant in his situation. He couldn't escape on his own; a bit of cooperation might even create the opening he would need. "I never sent a report, you fool," Kaine slurred out, smirking as he swam around in his own satisfaction. "Somebody's been feeding you lies, right?"

Tenzo produced the file that had all of Kaine's personal details. A recent photo, a long list of strengths and weaknesses, elemental types, and a severely edited history portion. "This is you, though. Kaine Hamasaki." He waved the file in front of Kaine's face.

Kaine nodded. "Yeah, it's me. And I was in your village a few months ago, doing some important surveying." He chuckled again, shutting his eyes and giving his shackles another harsh jolt. "I've been there before that, too. A few times in the past," he added.

"We were given this file by the Hokage herself; are you telling me that she can't be trusted? She told Kakashi and I that she sent you down here—personally—on a mission." Tenzo could feel his resolve slipping just a little, and he could feel himself doubting Tsunade ever so slightly. "Was it a lie?"

"No, it wasn't a lie. I was handed off to her by my contact in the village," Kaine said, looking smug. He knew he was holding valuable cards, and he seemed intent to use them. "Take these cuffs off and I'll give you a name."

Tenzo narrowed his eyes. A caged animal would do or say anything to get the door open; only a fool would release a starving tiger just based on its word. "Not likely. I wouldn't call this behavior cooperative, exactly," Tenzo said while cutting a glance to Makoto. She was trying to look bored; disinterested. "Maybe you should wait outside," Tenzo declared, pointing toward the door and wearing his best threatening face.

Makoto let off an _eep,_ standing up from her seat and covering her mouth with both hands. "U-uh, okay, Mister Tenzo. I'll see you soon, okay, Mister Kaine?" She gave a hurried wave and scampered out the door, closing it behind her and leaving Tenzo and Kaine alone in the room. She took Kaine's untouched tray of food with her, as if she expected something violent to happen and was trying to protect the hospital's assets.

"Where's your friend?" Kaine asked, noticing Kakashi's absence.

"Out on patrol. He says he's been getting a bad feeling again. The last time he said that, he bumped into a man named Minoru," Tenzo looked to Kaine, expecting a reaction. He got one.

"Minoru was here?" Kaine looked puzzled, even a little shocked. "Where is he now?"

"Gone...Kakashi said that you sent for help, and that this Minoru character is the one who responded. You know him, then?" Tenzo asked; a formality.

"He's everything to me," Kaine said without a hint of sarcasm or deception. His face had turned to an unfeeling stone, as if trying to hide his thoughts. "...and you should fear him."

"From what I heard, Kakashi sent him on his way without much difficulty," Tenzo said with a vocal jab. "Maybe he's in over his head with us, like you seem to be," he said while knocking his knuckles against the solid wooden bracket that kept Kaine's hands apart. No seals meant no trouble.

The captive smirked. "Consider yourselves lucky, then. Minoru doesn't care about your strength, or your numbers; he sees into your soul. He can pick you apart without lifting a finger." Kaine writhed, gritting his teeth and puffing out the flesh of his upper lip before relaxing again, once more failing to make his bindings budge more than they should.

"Not to sound unimpressed, Kaine, but if he really is that capable, then why would he leave you here?" Tenzo tilted his head, as if delivering bad news. "You must not be very valuable to him...why pledge so much loyalty to a man who'd leave you in captivity?"

"He knows what he's doing...Tenzo," Kaine said, calming a bit but maintaining a spiteful malice. "Probably hoping I'll learn a lesson if I stew in confinement for a while," he added through his sneering mouth. "Wouldn't be the first time."

"Hmm. You said that you've come to the Leaf Village often in the past? Why?" Tenzo asked, producing a sheet of paper for notes which he laid out on the end table.

"To visit; why else?" Kaine answered, emitting the sort of coy, confrontational tone that a child would give a step parent who hadn't earned their love.

"Do you want me to make them tighter?" Tenzo formed a seal, and the cuffs around Kaine's ankles and wrists clamped harder, squeezing his flesh and threatening to cut off circulation. The prisoner looked like he wanted to groan, but he caught all the air in his throat and held his chest tight to resist. It wasn't the pain that Tenzo was trying to exploit, but the sense of imprisonment. He knew better than to think he could punish a stubborn brat like Kaine with physical torture. "Who do you know? Who sent you to the Hokage, and why bother?"

"Your village is full of liars, cheaters, and spies, Tenzo," Kaine answered, miraculously becoming easier to work with under the threat of more insurmountable trappings. "I'm one of them, you know?" He laughed, openly puffing out air to show off the fullness of his lungs. He hadn't felt so good since before being gutted by Akemi, even despite his restraints. "I slip into the ranks, get some important information, wind up assigned to a mission because I 'know the area,'" he smirked arrogantly. "And then it's easy to just ignore my duties. I never even sent a report; that's just another lie—a lie concocted by your system to give your Hokage the appearance of being in control."

The blue-headed junior seemed to be indoctrinated by somebody's rancid philosophy, and Tenzo sighed again. "I've heard that before. Are you and Minoru more of Orochimaru's puppets?"

"Orochimaru? He's your biggest thorn, right?" Kaine snickered. "People like him make it easier for people like us to get what we need. See, while you're busy traipsing around the country looking for snakes, we're finding the things that matter." Kaine held up his fingers, lifting them one at a time. "Information, allies, and new recruits."

"Recruits like Rika Mori." Tenzo clarified.

"Yeah, exactly," Kaine began, then he pursed his lips and his face went a little bit colorless, despite his rich tan. "I'm gonna be in a lot of trouble with Akemi when I get back," he mumbled without thinking.

"Akemi?" Tenzo blinked.

"Don't ask; even if you want to know, you don't _really_ want to know," Kaine said. "I'll tell you that she's the reason I'm stuck here." He practically spat. "If I had been a hundred percent, your filthy assassins wouldn't have even touched me."

"No doubt..." Tenzo jeered. "Kakashi told me that you were able to decode a message using our Anbu cipher; where did you learn it? It's not something that you can pick up in a day."

Kaine opened his mouth to answer, but he stopped short. His eyes softened and his head tilted, bewildered. "I...can't remember," he said, seeming to be genuinely disoriented. "I think...maybe I've just always known," he said, eyes glazing over as he lost track of himself for a moment.

"That's odd," Tenzo continued, writing something down for later reference. "Were you part of our Anbu corps at any point?"

"N-no," Kaine answered, as if he had never thought of asking that question to himself. "Just...spent time in the village, asking questions and getting answers." After he shook his head violently, attempting to clear out its cobwebs, he was getting his rhythm back. A chink had been found in his mental fortitude, but he refused to let himself wear it openly.

"What color is our Hokage's hair, Kaine?" It was probably just a control question, to measure composure and truthfulness.

"Blonde," Kaine answered confidently. "Most certainly blonde."

Tenzo nodded, making another mark. "Thanks for being so cooperative, Kaine Hamasaki. As I promised, I'm going to loosen you up a little." Forming a seal similar to the one that tightened them, Tenzo loosened the hold of the chains and even willed them to extend with new links, thus giving his prisoner more room to stretch out.

Kaine took full advantage of the added range, rolling over onto one side and then another, stretching his arm span out wide. "Ahhh, better," he said victoriously. His haziness had vanished; he did not seem to wonder any more about just who had taught him the mysterious code he understood.

"One more thing," Tenzo said, holding up a single digit. His other hand slid open a drawer beneath his makeshift desktop and pulled out Kaine's headband. "What is this?"

Kaine put on a smile of affection, the kind worn during a reunion with a dear friend. "My headband, that's what it is. Not even cracked, is it?" He sounded surprised. Surely, that butting exchange between himself and rabbit-man should have put a dent in it at very least. Kaine took a moment to study himself. As expected, his clothes were different and clean. A white shirt and dark brown pants, none of what he had been wearing during his fight.

"Where did you get something like this?" Tenzo asked, folding the forehead protector up and setting it on the table beside his notes.

"I made it, Tenzo. Where'd you get yours?" Kaine poked his chin out, indicating the face mask carved with the Leaf symbol.

"Made it," Tenzo answered. "Most genin are given theirs when they leave the academy, but I took a different approach. An approach a lot like yours, I'm guessing."

"Probably not exactly like me, mister Wood Style." Kaine had been shocked to see it, at first. While he still didn't believe it could be true, there was a deep part of him that had to accept that his shackles were made of living, breathing wood that was responding instantly to Tenzo's urgings. "Minoru would probably like to meet a man with your talents," Kaine said smoothly, like he thought he was in control. Tenzo knew better. It was time for the test.

"He probably would; where is your village located?" Tenzo asked.

"Even if I told you exactly where it was, you and your people would never find it. It's Hidden by Truth. Liars can't see it." Kaine looked pretty sure of himself.

"Good to know," Tenzo said while he formed another seal. Kaine's bonds were released abruptly. The freed man's eyes widened in surprise and his hands came together to rub on each wrist, testing himself for delusions. His feet kicked up a bit, too. Fragmented wood fell from the bed, splintering against the floor as Kaine jumped up from the mattress to stand on his own two feet. Tenzo held up a finger in warning. "Don't leave Monolith Point, Kaine. You won't get far."

"Ahh, I knew you weren't such a bad guy, Tenzo," Kaine said with elation. He stretched out, flexing his hands and feet. No time was wasted; he started to walk toward the room's closed door, opening it up to see Makoto standing there, still holding the tray of slop. "And you, Makoto," Kaine said with an entirely different voice. It was warm and inviting. "Thanks for reading to me in there. You're a lifesaver," he said, reaching his hand out to cup the woman's cheek. Her blush was enormous, and her hands fidgeted nervously, leading her to drop the tray. It would have clanged and broken on the floor, but Kaine scooped it from the air and balanced it in his free palm easily. "Careful," he said, looking Makoto in the eyes, wearing a look like he was trying to mesmerize her with his blue stare.

She was flustered. "Y-yeah...thanks," the girl managed to say. She had just about collapsed under the attention, wearing a curled smile and swallowing a new lump in her throat every time she took a breath. "S-say, if you're free to walk around...want to come get something to eat? I'm sure Mister Tenzo won't mind, as long as you don't leave the village," She was looking up at Kaine, hopeful eyes twinkling.

"As long as it's not this stuff," Kaine replied, dipping his finger into the greenish mush and taking a dollop to his mouth. He winced at the flavor but swallowed it anyway. "Please tell me I haven't been eating this for two weeks without knowing it."

Makoto smiled with guilt. "Well, you wouldn't swallow anything else," she said with her hands propped under her chin, clapped together.

"Great...Then I definitely need something real," Kaine said. A nurse was walking through the hall, and Kaine passed the tray off to her. The older woman looked confused, but then she shrugged and took the dish with her. "How's the food at your inn?" Kaine asked, looking Makoto over. She was still plain to gawk at, dressed in a way that was covering most of herself—including her hair—but Kaine seemed to find something alluring about it all.

"Oh, it's the best there is, Mister Kaine!" Makoto perked up excitedly, clapping once again. "I'll make you some stew and take good care of you," she said.

"No, no; I want you to be my guest at the table, not my waitress." Kaine answered.

Makoto reached a new shade of red. "O-oh, alright," she said, unsure of how to react. Her enthusiasm must have reached a breaking point, falling apart as she stood dumbstruck.

Kaine laughed openly, crossing his arms. "Don't sound so disappointed, alright? You're making me nervous." He winked knowingly.

Makoto showed two rows of white teeth in a wide, giddy grin. "Let's go, then," she replied quickly, taking Kaine by the hand and running off with him.

Still in the room, Tenzo was sitting silently with his eyes closed.

* * *

"What were they saying about me while I slept?" Kaine asked Makoto, spooning himself out a helping of meat and potatoes from his steaming bowl of stew.

"Only a little. Mostly, Mister Kakashi was reading to himself and Mister Tenzo was just keeping your cuffs together," Makoto answered, also digging into her meal with enthusiasm. "They talked about your headband, about some guy named Minoru, and...well, they said you were supposed to be dead?"

Kaine blinked. "Supposed to be dead, huh? Why didn't they kill me themselves, if they felt that way?" He stubbornly stabbed at a stray lump of chicken that was deftly avoiding his utensil. "They went through a lot of trouble keeping me alive if they don't like me this way."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mister Kaine...they meant you got hurt so bad that a normal person would've died. I think they admire your strength," Makoto corrected herself, attempting damage control with a bow of her head.

"You can just call me Kaine; I'd actually prefer it that way," Kaine said, finally winning his battle and chewing the stringy piece of poultry in triumph. He talked with his mouth full and didn't seem to realize it.

"Kaine," Makoto said, fighting her urge to give him some kind of title. "Alright, I'll do that."

Makoto's parents were buzzing busily around the pair, as there were no other customers. Her father was a heavy man in an apron with a balding head of black hair, and her mother was short and stocky but not quite as round. They were playing at the idea of cleaning the tables and sweeping the floor, but they each had their ears open and Makoto could tell she was being watched.

"How's she doing, Kaine?" Makoto asked, leaning over the table and whispering, trying to keep some privacy to their conversation.

"Rika? She was fine, last time I saw her. I told her to train with Akemi—a close friend of mine from the village. The others, too; Fiona, Mako, Tito, Sammy, and Nick. Akemi will take good care of them, but her training methods are sometimes a bit...harsh. Don't be surprised if Rika's got a few bruises the next time you see her." Kaine gave his own torso a pat, feeling scar tissue above his belly button, but no longer feeling pain there. "She gave me the damned hole that let those assassins nearly get me."

"So then she's somebody who wants you dead?" Makoto was sucking idly on a piece of meat inside her cheek, taking out all its flavor.

"No, nothing like that. Minoru put us together on an evaluation exam, to test how much we've progressed; she beat me, but don't let her convince you that she did it easily. I'd rather call it a draw, but...I guess I was the only one in a hospital bed at the end of it all." He smirked, recalling his failure under a new light. Had he won the battle, he would have already been back in his village. Weeks ago, at that.

"Oh, so she's just like your sister?" Makoto gulped down her savored meat, taking up another hunk and repeating the process. "Me and Rika fight all the time, but I don't think we've ever put holes in one another," She sucked in her lower lip, recalling. "Though, one time I did cut her arm really bad. We were fighting over something stupid in the kitchen; I don't even remember what it was, but we both lost our heads. I picked up a knife because I was trying to get her to back off, but she tried to take it from me. I wanted to pull away—to put the knife down and call a truce, you know?" Another swallow, another fresh piece. "But she was too mad, and she wasn't...well, she wasn't very _good _at taking knives away, so she cut herself on it. We both got covered in blood and walked into the main room to find our parents, so a whole bunch of guests saw us bloody and crying and ashamed of ourselves."

"I'll bet you got into a lot of trouble for that, didn't you?" Kaine asked, picking up a small cup of tea and tilting it to his lips.

"Not as much as I thought. For a while, maybe. I guess the doctors were afraid that I was really trying to hurt her; they wouldn't even let me see her while she was in the hospital, at first. I felt so guilty; she was there for two days to make sure the stitches would hold." Makoto held out her arm and pulled up her sleeve to show the unblemished skin of her forearm. She traced a line with her fingertip from the base of her wrist to the beginning of her elbow. "Allll the way from here, to here," she narrated. "She's still got the scar. I was always telling her sorry, and she forgave me right away, but...she'll always have the scar."

"Mistakes can last a lifetime, can't they?" Kaine mused out loud, looking at his own reflection in the black surface of his tea. He didn't even recognize himself anymore. He didn't see the weakness he expected, or even the strength. He only saw the eyes of a tired jerk who was far from home, but somehow still looked like he was in the right place. "I don't remember parents, or brothers, or sisters. Just a lot of bad things; a lot of desperation. Bad people—people who told me they'd make the pain go away," Kaine said, rubbing his thumb against the side of his cup as he held it. "Life wasn't easy for me, then. I don't think it ever will be, either. People who don't want me dead just want me to do something for them. Among them all, Minoru's the only one I've ever known who ever told me I had the power to be free."

"And that's why you love him so much, Kaine?" Makoto tilted her head, engrossed in the young man's voice.

"Yeah...I suppose you could say I do love him. He's a man who makes me feel like I've got family, kind of like what you've got," Kaine answered, looking to the overbearing parents a few paces to his left. They weren't very good at subtle eavesdropping, and the gifted ninja could tell from the beginning that he was being judged.

"You know, Kaine," Makoto begun sheepishly. Her parents paused, their ears turning hot with intention. "We're a family here, too. In this village." She looked to him, appearing quite vulnerable in her chair. "You could stay with us, and you'd still be free."

Kaine stuttered momentarily, leaning back in his seat and putting his hands on the table. He looked at Makoto, and despite how naïve her ideas were, he could tell that she was sincerely inviting him to stay. That she wanted him to. "It's...not that simple, Makoto," he answered, taking a scalding hot chug of his tea. It burned his throat on the way down, but he had to do something to rid his mind of the lingering doubt. He didn't want to let himself believe that he could just leave it all behind.

"Why not?" She insisted.

"Because people want me dead. Because I've made promises. Because Rika is still in our village, probably waiting for me to come back and take her out of Akemi's class. Minoru needs me around, too; the village is weaker for my absence." He fished for every little reason he could, trying to justify his answer to the girl—and to himself.

Makoto was disappointed, but she couldn't resist the smile of an imp. "They need you, even though Akemi beat you?"

Kaine flattened his lips, doing his best not to tremble with rage. He wasn't mad at Makoto; far from it. He just didn't like the memory of his defeat, and the defeat was made even worse by how long his absence had grown. Two defeats so close together? He was going to have a hard time explaining that to his students. Respect was going to be difficult to earn, assuming he ever made it back. Thinking on it, he figured that Tenzo wasn't much of an issue; kindhearted, maybe a little bit too trusting. Kaine knew a thing or two about Kakashi, though. He already expected that the only way he was going to escape was to make a quick run for it, hopefully avoiding the legendary ninja's patrol arc.

"Sorry, Kaine," Makoto said, waving her hand apologetically. "Didn't mean to hurt your feelings," she said honestly.

"Don't be sorry, Makoto." Kaine answered shortly, having been snapped out of his scheming and reminiscing. A small part of him was still bothered by something else, though. _When did I learn that code?, _he asked himself.

"Hmmph. You don't look well. Are you okay? Does anything hurt?" Makoto was needling him from across the table, poking at his arms and chest with a bony fingertip.

"Ow, hey, quit it," Kaine sputtered out, flexing himself to escape her assault. "I'm fine, I'm fine! I promise, I'm fine!" He shouted, smiling genuinely in his thoughts, but hiding the real expression beneath two layers of a practiced, tough facade. After a stretch of silence, "It's nice here," Kaine said solemnly, taking another bite of stew. He was hungry. Even without ever being aware of eating it, he could tell that the hospital goop wasn't nourishing enough for him. Upon further deliberation, he realized that the inn's stew was the best thing he had ever eaten, no matter how basic it was; it yielded no peculiar spices or signature oddities. It was just meat, broth, potatoes, carrots and celery. So why did it taste so incredibly good?

"It's the nicest place in the world, Kaine," Makoto confirmed, running her fingertip along the rim of her tea cup. "I'd never want to leave it, you know?"

"I know," Kaine answered.

"...But _you_ want to leave, don't you?" She said to him, looking sad but determined.

"I do. I need to get back home; back to my own people. This isn't where I belong—even if I would've liked it to be." Kaine looked closely at the girl, feeling the reluctance coming from her and wondering for a moment if it had rubbed off on him as well.

"You should go now, then," she said, pointing toward a door that led into the kitchen. "Go out back, where we take the waste and broken dishes. It opens up into the forest; a guy like you can probably sneak through without anybody noticing." Makoto huffed, cutting her eyes toward her parents. "Aside from them, anyway, but I've...I've already told them I want to help you."

Her parents were indeed listening, but they weren't making any protests. Kaine looked on in disbelief. "That's dangerous, Makoto. Don't you know those Leaf ninjas will kill you if you try to help me?" The idea was tantalizing, though. He had confidence in his stealth; he would be able to get away quickly enough to at least get a head start before they realized he was missing.

"Mister Tenzo won't hurt me. He'll get mad, but he's not a mean guy. It looks like he gets along really well with Mister Kakashi, too. Maybe they'll just lock me up for a while. I promise I'll be fine," Makoto said, waving her hand toward the door. "Go. Like, go right now! Before they come in to check on you." She stood up, smacking her hands to the table, staring right at Kaine. "Go...go to where you think you belong." There were little puddles of tears welling along her lower eyelids, but she kept herself from sniffling.

Kaine couldn't begin to understand why she looked so sad. In all his years, nobody had ever cried for him. It jarred him somewhere deep to see the look she gave him, but the pull of his village was strong. He had to get back...but he didn't want to leave her behind. He recalled the night they met, her big eyes full of wonder and innocence. She had refused him that time, but..."Come with me, then," he said, offering it again. He spoke low enough to subvert the big-eared adults in the room.

"I can't, Kaine," Makoto said, no longer able to fight back a big, long snort. She was really torn up about it, but she didn't seem to want to take it back. "I belong where I am."

"But I..." Kaine trailed off, at a loss for words when faced with Makoto's open sorrow. She wasn't the prettiest, nor the wealthiest, nor the strongest woman he had ever met. Why did she have such a sway? "I'll see you again," he said with new resolve. "I won't be able to come back to the tree, now that Kakashi knows about it; I'll send Astor directly to you, and he'll get messages back and forth, okay?"

Makoto snuffled again. "A-astor?"

"He's my hawk. My best friend. He's the one who got that message to your sister; he was supposed to send help as well, but Minoru left me here." Kaine slanted his brows at the thought. "Anyway, I'll send him every day. I'll tell Rika too." He reached his hand over to set it on top of Makoto's, giving a brief squeeze. "I don't want to rush, but if I'm doing this, I've got to do it now. Take care of yourself—if you want to lie to them, I don't blame you. Tell them that I overpowered you and ran away."

"I won't. You're not like tha—" Kaine's finger shushed her lips, and he smirked .

"If it keeps you safe, then I'm whatever I need to be. I shouldn't have let you get involved with a guy like me; I'm sorry for all this, Makoto," Kaine took his hand away and stood up to leave quickly. Makoto looked like she had something more to say, with her hand reaching feebly out but never touching Kaine's fleeting form.

Rushing out through the door and into the dense trees that framed the inn's trash pit, Kaine never looked back. He _couldn't_ look back. He didn't want to see an alternative to what he had always known. He didn't want to tempt himself with a life that allowed him to smile on the inside.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Don't forget to leave a review, and maybe drop a follow or a favorite if you think I deserve it. **


	9. Liability

**This was supposed to be up much earlier, but the outage delayed my plan. Oh well. Thanks again to everybody who is reading this!**

* * *

Kaine knew it was a terrible idea to flee, but he had to take his chance when it presented itself. Makoto honestly wanted to help him, and while her plan may not have been perfect, he for some reason didn't have the heart it would have taken to tell her that she was probably going to get _him _killed as well as herself. Regardless of his misgivings, he rushed away from Monolith Point in an easterly direction, trying to bee line for the safety of his village. Not even the fearsome Kakashi Hatake would dare to chase him that far.

The problem was that Kakashi had already caught onto his scent, and Kaine could feel the faster ninja's presence rapidly gaining on him in the trees. As Kaine sprinted, he realized with regret that he was once again without weaponry. He was running in generic sandals provided by the hospital; his vest was gone, and he didn't even have the luxury of his headband. He had already made his break for it, so it was too late for regrets. He was born stubborn, so he would of course refuse to surrender despite his disadvantage. He rarely got to have a fair fight, because he was always acting foolishly. At least his wounds were gone, this time.

As was his tendency, Kaine reached a clearing and situated himself in the middle of it, turning to face the man who pursued him. He couldn't have kept running and expected to escape; Kakashi's speed was unreal, even compared to a prodigy like Kaine. He didn't feel nervous, despite being thrust into yet another fight for his very life. It was time to test himself against the very best that the Leaf could throw at him.

Kakashi at least did the younger rogue the service of showing himself without trickery. The silver hair atop his head gleamed in the late afternoon sun, and he landed weightlessly upon the grass of the open field. On all sides, trees served as the audience, beholden to the clash about to occur. Kakashi spoke first, calm and confident. "You shouldn't have run away. Tenzo was being kind by giving you the freedom to move around. It's rude to betray the trust he placed in you."

Kaine laughed openly, again glad to feel his lungs filled with fresh air. It had been too long. Even as an unconscious husk, he could feel on some level that he was confined. Two weeks of captivity were being worked through. In the open air of the clearing, he felt freedom again, and he refused to give that glorious sensation up to such a self-assured bastard as Kakashi was. The more experienced shinobi still ticked Kaine off with his easygoing attitude. A killer shouldn't be so calm; he should rage and bite and kick. Kaine opened his mouth and spoke brashly. "He was stupid to trust me. How do you handle such an incompetent partner?"

Kakashi sighed, reaching to his thigh and sliding out a kunai. "I suppose I shouldn't expect a runaway like you to understand it, Kaine Hamasaki. You don't know how it feels to have loyal friends, do you?"

"I know enough about loyalty. Don't you start lecturing me, friend-killer Kakashi." Kaine reached for his hip, and found himself without a kunai. With a _tsk,_ he shifted into his typical combat stance. His fists were raised and his feet were set apart. Kakashi, seeing that his opponent had an equipment disadvantage, shrugged and sheathed his own kunai. Kaine smirked. "Don't be so sure of yourself. You really think I need a weapon to beat the likes of you?"

Kakashi didn't answer, merely dipped into his own fighting stance with his hands spread open like claws. He dipped low to the ground, one hand out front and the other behind. His torso was angled and his legs spread wide and deep. He kept his Sharingan covered and his real eye focused on Kaine. Kakashi was waiting for his opponent—permitting him to take the first move.

Kaine paused, feeling suddenly tense. As he looked at Kakashi, he felt a twinge of uncertainty. He couldn't see a single opening in his opponent's defense—there was nothing he could exploit. _Something will open up if I force it,_ he reassured himself. He took a breath, steadying his nerves and launching off of one foot to blast into a sprint. He felt faster than he ever had, as if lightning flooded his veins and the sun had given him renewed fervor. He intended to show Kakashi what it meant to fight with the spirit of survival.

Just as soon as he reached Kakashi, Kaine found himself flat on his back. His eyes were spread wide open and his throat lumped with disbelief. He tried to swallow but he couldn't even do that much. He replayed the moment in his head, backpedaling and re-feeling the same rush of confidence that he had thrived on just a second before. It seemed like a sound plan: he had aimed a powerful punch for the weakest segment of Kakashi's stance—the only hope he had of slipping through the cracks. Even without exposing the terrifying Sharingan, Kaine's attempt was not good enough. He remembered feeling his wrist diverted and his body flung into the air like a cheap doll, then slammed to the ground.

Though he expected one, there was no blade at his throat. Kaine recovered from his shock, and he sprung up with a gyration of his whole body to land flat on two feet. He spun around to face Kakashi, and what he saw pissed him off more than anything else had ever done in his life. The cocky ninja was _reading again._ Kaine briefly remembered seeing Kakashi reading in the hospital, and at the time had taken it as a sign of disinterest. Now, though, it was a direct insult. "Put that away," Kaine said through clenched teeth. "You're gonna respect me."

Kakashi cut his eye away from the page of his book, but didn't bother to close it. "I'll respect you when you prove yourself worthy of it. You fight like an animal; it's sloppy."

"I'll show you _sloppy!_" Kaine shouted, echoing through the open plain amongst the dense forest. He spread both hands wide, then clapped them together to begin forming a sequence of seals. Kakashi was still reading, his head turned away. Kaine was growing angrier by the second. The least Kakashi could have done was acknowledge him by opening his other eye. Kaine thought it would have been a shame to kill him without seeing the Sharingan's power for himself. Kaine took in a deep breath, and with the end of his seals he sprayed a huge torrent of water from his mouth, seeking to wash away his opponent with overwhelming volume.

Kakashi tucked his book underneath an arm, then flashed through a series of hand signs that Kaine couldn't even follow with his eyes. In response, the Land of Water native forced more chakra through his system to feed his crashing tsunami, blocking his own view with the dense, muddy water that engulfed the land. As he felt his assault reach Kakashi, he was answered by an equal—no, a more powerful wave. He put all he could into his forceful shove, but the water clashed against a wall of heavier liquid, slowly being pushed back. He struggled valiantly for nearly a minute, but eventually he was overtaken and his wave broke apart. He was hit hard by a huge rush, foamy fluid drenching him and then forcing him under. He held his breath and swam as hard as his muscles would let him until he reached the surface and gasped for air.

Shaking his head side to side, he dried himself off like a dog and ran his fingers through his hair as he brought his feet up to the top, charged with chakra to stand in the deep pond created by the struggle. Kakashi was already there to greet him, combing through his infuriating novel as if Kaine wasn't even there. Kaine clenched both fists, then roared in defiance. "You're nothing special, Kakashi Hatake! You can't stop me; I'm invincible." Again, he charged. This time, his hand engulfed itself with crisp blue-white electricity, and he aimed for Kakashi directly. He felt blind to anything else.

Kakashi saw the attack coming easily, and at the last moment he flexed his right hand and charged it with a Lightning Blade. Rather than counter Kaine with another easy flip, he decided that it was time to show just how deep the ravine between them ran. As Kaine sent his overcharged fist through the air and leaped from the ground to carry his momentum, Kakashi offered a return thrust—a direct clash between their techniques. Kaine's 'invincible' lightning was instantly shredded by Kakashi's refined slicing focus. The energy crackled together, but Kaine's chakra suddenly gave way to Kakashi's superior technique.

Demonstrating his precision and restraint, Kakashi canceled his chakra just as Kaine's palm would have been split apart by the collision. Instead, he locked his fingers with Kaine's and clenched hard, gaining an unbreakable grip on the latter's palm and wrist. With a one-armed maneuver, Kakashi turned Kaine around and tucked his arm behind his back, bent at the shoulder in an uncomfortable hold. Kaine thrashed and kicked behind himself, but Kakashi's limber movements were too fluid and responsive. Kaine's instincts were failing him against the vastly superior Kakashi. Even in brute strength, somehow the lazy reader had the edge.

Kaine had never felt so utterly dominated in battle. That day had proven to be full of new experiences, hadn't it? First the crying, then the complete dismantling of his confidence. Perhaps his truth was not as true as he thought it to be. "Let go of me," Kaine growled, sounding like he looked—angry and confused. "I'll rip you in half!"

"With what? This arm?" Kakashi stressed the captured limb, eliciting a stifled grunt of pain from his vanquished foe. "Relax, Kaine. I know what's going through your head right now." Kakashi eased his grip, and Kaine immediately thrashed as roughly as he could. Kakashi was jostled momentarily but he regained control. Even with a free arm, Kaine could not adequately reach behind himself.

"If you know, then let me go," Kaine answered, unsuccessfully trying to sound collected.

"This situation—your village, in particular—is more dangerous than you know. I don't want you to run off and find yourself regretting it." Kakashi still had his Sharingan concealed. He had handled Kaine with an obvious blind spot and without the natural advantages of the red eye. "I've received a message from the Hokage, Kaine. She told me that we have no Anbu active in the area; she doesn't lie to me."

"You're so sure about that, but how _can_ you be? The Leaf Village is full of liars; I told Tenzo the same thing," Kaine answered defiantly, wanting to spit on Kakashi but unable to turn his head around far enough.

"Again, I wouldn't expect you to understand. I think it's ironic that your village calls itself Truth." Kakashi released Kaine's arm, and Kaine immediately turned to throw a heavy punch on the left side, aiming for the blind spot. Kakashi casually picked up his left hand to block Kaine's solid fist with his wrist. Kaine snarled, and then he aimed a kick for Kakashi's ankle. Kakashi jump himself into a backflip, kicking Kaine right on the chin with the front of his rubberized sandal.

Kaine staggered back, broken from Kakashi's blocking grip and holding onto his mouth. His teeth had slammed together with a loud clack in his mouth, echoing in his ears. He felt like all his molars were cracked and his front teeth were going to fall out, but after a throbbing few seconds the smarting subsided and he felt himself intact. He sighed and then sharply inhaled, trying to mask the pain again. "I hate you, Kakashi Hatake."

"Hate me all you want, but the truth isn't what you think it is. This goes further back than either of us may ever know...Who do you think Minoru is?" Kakashi seemed as calm as ever. The fight hadn't even been a challenge for him. There was a reason he was trusted with all of the most demanding missions, after all.

"Minoru is the truth, Kakashi. He's my leader and my friend. He respects me and my strength, and he knows what it takes to be powerful." Kaine charged one hand with lightning and another with a globe of water. He brought both fists together into a charged ball, then changed the shape of his chakra to form it into a lance. He carried the solidified water, then hurled his arm forward to launch the construct like a javelin aimed to Kakashi's chest.

With a simple lean of his upper body, Kakashi dodged the makeshift spear, which then collided with a tree and exploded in a torrent of splashing water and snapping electrical power. It was a potentially deadly attack, but it had no hope of landing. Kaine threw another, and Kakashi eased himself out of its path just as well. The explosion echoed in the distance, muffled by thick bark and a sheet of leaves along the forest floor. The water left behind by their tidal clash had begun to seep into the soil, and their feet touched thick mud at the same time as one another.

"I need to get back to him. I'm his left hand..." Kaine reassured himself, though perhaps his faith had been minutely shaken by recent events. He threw a third javelin, but this time Kakashi simply caught the whole technique in an open hand and squeezed its watery shaft. The whole thing collapsed harmlessly, with Kakashi's own lightning countering the jolt and his unparalleled chakra control robbing the structure of its integrity otherwise.

"He's got his hooks in you, Kaine, and they're in deep. How long has he been feeding you his ideals?" Kakashi set his hand down beside his hip, and Kaine had finally given up trying to attack. Even a man as dauntless as he was could recognize an impossible battle.

"I've known him as long as I've known anyone. I met him years before I ever went to the Leaf; really, I've been one of his since I was a starving little boy." Kaine wasn't fighting anymore, but his body was taut and trembling like it wanted to explode. "He does good things...he makes us ready for this unforgiving world."

"I don't have to tell you, but nothing can prepare you for the horrors of war, Kaine. I can see in your eyes that you know the cost of fighting, and yet you refuse to stop." Kakashi reached into his pouch again, producing his book and opening it up. "I've seen a lot of good people meet terrible ends for the sake of winning a war. And while it took me a long time to realize it, I learned that there is no such thing as victory in battle—we can only keep a small part of what we used to have. Even if we come out ahead, it only means that somebody else has lost even more than us. We still must face the damage to our friends and family. Irreversible cracks spread along the foundation of peace each time a blade crosses with another. As a man who knows the price of war, why do you insist on waging one?"

"It's not like that, Kakashi," Kaine said, sounding defensive. "I don't want to fight, but I _have _to fight. Your village has made the world unsafe. Minoru was wronged by the Leaf in ways that none of us will ever understand."

"Is it that you'll never understand, or that he'll never tell you about it to begin with?" Kakashi seemed to learn something from Kaine's subtle and unintentional body language. The younger one was softening; his shoulders lost their edge and his stance had become unsure of itself as he spoke.

"It doesn't matter to you. You're part of the Leaf. You'd rather see me dead than free." Kaine thought long and hard, realizing himself that his claim made no sense—even now, Kakashi could kill him with a flick of his wrist. It would have been easy. Kaine knew he was outclassed, but he lived and breathed and could even move as he liked. He counted in his head all the times within the past minutes during which he could have been slain and left to rot on the forest floor, and a chill ran up his spine involuntarily. Kakashi Hatake was a dangerous man.

"Then go, Kaine. Look for freedom in your imprisonment to his ideals." Kakashi waved a dismissive hand. "If you think you're better off with him, then return with your tail between your legs. Beg him to take you back after he left you at our mercy. Maybe he'll even show you his true face before he sends you into battle on his behalf."

"Into battle? Why do you think he'd send me into battle?" Kaine replied, shaken a little bit. The village was peaceful; the army they were building was one for defense of their borders.

"Minoru told me that his moment was 'now.' That it was happening around us..." Kakashi looked to the trees. They were all but naked now. "At the time, I wasn't sure what to make of it...but while you were unconscious, I returned to one of the towns that had been visited by your people...perhaps even by you, personally."

Kaine had a guarded look on his face, but his hands remained at his sides. He still wanted to strike, but even during the conversation Kakashi had shown no openings. Kaine asked apprehensively. "And what did you find?"

Kakashi took on a grave expression, his brow lowered and his eye darkened by shadow. "Flames, Kaine. Flames, corpses, and a message—a message to us. 'The final autumn has come. The leaves will fall. Truth will prevail.' He's made his first move without you. I gather that you would have tried to stop him, wouldn't you?"

Kaine tried to process it. He panicked briefly, thinking that perhaps the town in question had been Monolith Point—he dismissed the notion as stupid, knowing full well that he had been there himself only minutes before hand. The fact that he felt such a thrust of fear was unsettling—had he really grown so affectionate toward the town? Kakashi must have been lying, either way. Minoru would never attack a village, let alone burn it to the ground. He had a kind heart. "I don't believe you, Kakashi—if your village burned, then it wasn't Minoru's doing. If you're telling me the truth, and those assassins the other day weren't with you, then they've probably made a move to pit us against one another."

Kakashi hummed. "Regardless of who's responsible, those deaths are on my hands. Every day that passes without solving this problem is a day that I'll never get back. I want you to help me figure this out—one way or another." Kakashi crossed his arms over his chest, shoulders unevenly slanted in a relaxed posture. Even then, he was alert and showed no vulnerabilities—Kaine was looking for one. Kakashi continued: "Return to your village and ask the right questions. If you find nothing out of place, then stay there—but if you doubt your leader's intentions, come back to Tenzo and me. We could use you. A war is brewing, and the Leaf village is crippled. As strong as Tenzo is, I don't think the two of us can defeat your entire village on our own. And that's not even mentioning these assassins of yours."

"You should know not to reveal your weaknesses to your enemies, Kakashi," Kaine said, challenging his better with a sly grin.

"I don't think you're my enemy, Kaine." Kakashi answered.

"Then you're in for a surprise, one of these days." Kaine brought his hand to his forehead, sending off two fingers in a mocking salute. "Be seeing you." He turned to leave, wasting no time. He didn't want Kakashi to change his mind.

Kakashi remained behind, his eye closed in contemplation. He slipped a quiet sigh, then ventured in the opposite direction from Kaine's departure. He returned to Monolith Point with a lot on his mind, entering the hospital room through the window to find Tenzo there in the exact same place he was left in.

"You did it, didn't you?" Kakashi asked, entering the room and looking onto the table beside Kaine's vacant bed. The headband was still there.

Tenzo nodded. "I did."

"Then you heard what I said to him?" Kakashi asked tentatively.

"It's true, then? One of the villages was burned to the ground?" Tenzo hadn't heard it before then.

"I'm afraid so," Kakashi answered. "The closest one to the border. I may have been wrong about Kaine's symbol, but this time...I really think Monolith Point is in danger."

* * *

Kaine didn't run into any outstanding opposition on his way back to the village, and he didn't have the stomach to stop by the region that had allegedly been attacked. Rather than taint his mind with potentially falsified evidence, he intended to take his concerns right to the source. Minoru had always been truthful with him, and his mind was boiling with unanswered needs. As he reached the border he knew belonged to the Truth Village, he formed a seal and pressed his hand to the grass. An opening split in the air, revealing a hazy barrier that doubled as a concealment technique. It surrounded the entire village, reaching all the way to the furthest tree that had been inscribed with the word 'truth.' It had effectively kept them hidden, but recent events were bringing their little corner of the world to light.

He entered the usual way and the rip in the illusion closed behind him. He passed the armory and food stores first. As expected, numerous citizens of Truth were gathered around the tables eating fruits and nuts harvested from the surrounding lands. Kaine couldn't help but notice that the bowls were more sparsely filled than they used to be. Were their supplies running low? He shook his head, deciding that Minoru would never let such a thing happen. His first destination was the training field—he had to make his presence known again to his students, and more importantly to Akemi. He didn't want her getting any bright ideas due to his absence. Among the rank and file that populated the village, nobody seemed to bat an eye to his return, as if they had all expected him sooner or later. _I wonder what Minoru told them about my situation,_ he mused.

It was barely past noon, and training had begun by the time he stepped through the trees and into the clearing. He found Akemi and her bolstered class occupying her usual circle, but she looked exasperated. Astor was clutching her shoulder, and Kaine figured that the loyal hawk had been keeping an eye on her in the village since the message delivery. The thought made him smirk, imagining how the bird's persistence must have annoyed the woman. She was never fond of 'flying rats.' Surveying the students, Kaine found himself puzzled. Between his group and Akemi's, the recruits should have numbered eleven—he only saw nine. Two missing.

Kaine announced his presence with his chest puffed up and his arms bulked up in a flex. He had to make his entrance a big one. "I see you're all hard at work," he began. "Toughening up for my return?" He stopped with his feet just outside the edge of the circle, and Astor abruptly separated from Akemi to perch on his rightful master's shoulder instead, rubbing his solid yellow beak against Kaine's cheek with enthusiastic affection. Rika was there, and three others from Monolith Point. Kaine realized by a headcount that the two who were missing were Mako and Fiona.

Heads turned toward his voice, and everybody except for Akemi clammed up and dropped down to sit on their behinds. Rika looked especially dutiful. Akemi, though, piped up hard and stomped over to Kaine to drive an accusing fingertip into his chest. He took a step back from the pressure, but she stepped forward to compensate and kept it constant. "You! Hamasaki, you idiot!" She shouted, making a scene. "Where in hell have you been?"

Kaine blinked, bringing his hand up to clutch Akemi's wrist and forcefully remove her finger from his ribs. "Captured. Thanks for the concern," he said through agitated breaths. "Where are Mako and Fiona?" He had just told Makoto that the two were fine, but he had a strange, sinking feeling that he might have been lying without realizing it.

"Gone," Akemi answered simply. "Lost them on a mission. Probably would have been different if you were with us, but it can't be helped, can it?" The other students were looking down into the dirt. All except for Rika. She had her hands in her lap and her eyes facing forward—none of the remainder had headbands of their own, yet, so at least Kaine hadn't missed _that_ much.

"Gone...? What do you mean _gone?_" Kaine snapped, making a fist. Astor's deep brown wings spread out, and he gave a short, shrill call. He could sense his partner's irritation and seemed to mirror it.

"They're dead, Kaine." Akemi seemed less than concerned. She was picking at her short-trimmed fingernails, and her eyes were kept off of her interrogator.

Kaine blanched, trying to imagine any number of scenarios that could have cost two lives, but he never came close. "Tell me how it happened. What were they doing on a mission before they had even been initiated!?" Kaine was furious. He was sure that Akemi had done something stupid.

"Minoru got the sense that they were lagging behind in training. He sent me, Rika, and the two dead ones off to raid a nearby village." She plucked a fleck of dirt from under a nail, flicking it away and humming thoughtlessly. "Turns out, we had some opposition and Minoru was right—they couldn't pull their weight."

"Raid a...what do you mean raid a nearby village?" Kaine was at a loss. Two weeks had passed...only two weeks. How had things become so different?

"You knew our stores weren't going to last forever, didn't you, Hamasaki?" Akemi sighed, rolling her eyes as if she had been talking to a child. "We've been growing too fast—our food is running out and there's no good land for us to start farming or fishing. If we want to survive, we need to find supplies elsewhere." Akemi seemed unusually cold to Kaine, but maybe that perception stemmed from the contrast with just how warm Makoto had been to him.

"By raiding a village? You're sure Minoru gave the order, and not an imposter of some kind?" He still couldn't make sense of it.

"I don't have to answer you, Hamasaki," Akemi said with a wry smirk. "You know the rules." She tapped her own forehead with the tip of her finger, clacking her solid nail against the stone of her crudely-embossed head protector. "No headband means no authority."

Kaine cursed himself for leaving his headband behind. He should have gone back for it, but he didn't want to risk losing Kakashi's good will by showing his face again so soon. Of course Akemi would give him grief over it, but he didn't think it was the right time for her snide little games. "Shut up, Akemi...Tell me where Minoru is. I have a lot I need to say to him."

"Not so fast—how do I know you're really Kaine Hamasaki?" Akemi tried to poke him again, but his reflexes were in top form and he grabbed her wrist before she made contact. The ferocity with which he gripped her sent a startle along her spine, and she involuntarily stepped back. "I mean...without the headband, and all...you could be anybody." She seemed less sure of herself for an instant. Something in Kaine's eyes terrified her.

"Tell me where." Kaine answered, feeling the calm chill in his own voice. His underlying rage was beginning to scare even himself.

"I-in his quarters, like always," Rika spoke up from beside the intensely staring pair. Akemi had a look of defiance, as if she hadn't intended to answer. Rika took what she figured to be the sensible route, telling the angry man what he wanted to know and hoping that things would simmer down from there. In the silent aftermath, Rika spoke again in a whisper that was delicate like falling snow. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry I couldn't protect Mako and Fiona. They were friends of mine, you know?"

"I'm sure you did everything you could," came the shaking reply from Kaine. He released Akemi's wrist with a jerking motion, coming close to dislocating her shoulder as he threw her hand aside.

"You'll never stop being an asshole, will you?" Akemi asked roughly, pouting toward her 'brother' and rubbing her sore wrist.

"Not in the mood right now," Kaine replied, turning to leave the training field. He made his way up Minoru's steps and put his hand to the solid door that blocked their leader's home from the rest of the village. Astor fled from his shoulder, realizing that he wasn't welcome indoors. As Kaine vanished from sight, Akemi rolled her eyes and turned back to the students.

"He'll be fine," Akemi said, sighing and shaking her head. "Let's get back to work." She clapped her hands together, and the surviving class stood up and began to spar as part of a regular warmup routine. They had been improving over the past weeks. They were still far from respectable ninjas, but were absolutely better than when they started. "Today, we're going to figure out each of your chakra affinities. It should be nice and productive." Akemi produced a few squares of chakra-sensitive paper from a back pocket, and she began passing them out among the students as they concluded their brief spars. She looked over her shoulder toward Minoru's home—she wondered what was going to happen up there, but she refused to ignore her duties in order to find out.

* * *

Kaine barged into Minoru's humble waiting room, and he saw that nobody was lined up for an audience. He wouldn't have cared, even if they were—he owned his rage, and it was his right to direct it as he saw fit. Whether Minoru was ready for him or not, he was _free_ to do as he liked. The second door was thrown open abruptly, metal slamming into metal as the hinges reached their full range of motion. Light poured into the eerily darkened room, but it didn't reach very far. Minoru remained cloaked in shadow until the door was closed and Kaine made his first demand. "You ordered an attack upon a village!?"

The tension reverberated through the metallic chamber and darkness swallowed every word. As always, Minoru let the question marinate in itself for a long minute before his calm, easy answer flowed out. "Of course I did, Kaine. Our intention was always to become an army, was it not?"

"An army that fought to protect itself...to protect others," Kaine added to the sentiment, feeling his teeth brutally grinding together within his mouth. He was making his gums sore with the pressure.

"We must become strong before we think of protecting others. I thought I had been teaching you better than this." Minoru's voice was starting to rattle around in Kaine's mind. Why did it sound so cruel and disconnected?

"Evidently not, Master Minoru," Kaine replied. It was a struggle to give him the respect of such a title in that moment, but even then, Kaine didn't have the courage to fully disrespect his master.

"I see that you are upset, Kaine," Minoru said. Footsteps were getting closer in the dark. "Though it is I who should be upset with you, above all."

"What do you m-" Kaine was cut off by four fingers prodding him in the gut. A swift blow, landing right below the frame of his rib cage. He gagged and coughed as air tried to enter his lungs but found the path obstructed. The fingers were hard pressed, and they dragged along a path up and over Kaine's chest and across his neck. Kaine felt something moving along with them, churning his insides and traveling slickly up his throat. He resisted the urge to gag and vomit, unsure of what was happening to him and suddenly incapable of controlling his movements.

"You were followed," Minoru replied. As his powerful hand reached Kaine's chin and made a yanking motion through the air, a collection of small spheres emerged covered in saliva and stomach acid, then fell with wet clicks to the floor. Even in the darkness, Kaine could make out their vaguely defined shapes as he fell to his knees, hands clutching both his throat and his upper chest to try to force away the intrusive feeling that had come up.

"W-what the...!?" Kaine questioned, igniting his right hand with vibrant electricity to gain a small bit of light. He saw the shapes upon the ground in clear detail: they were seed pods. Little balls that seemed to be made of...wood. "No...Tenzo...?" He speculated, wiping his mouth and cleaning himself off. An image of the disgusting green goop from the hospital flashed in his head. He had caught his breath, but his nerves were shaking and his basic urges were trying to take control of his mind. Kaine wanted to murder Minoru for what had happened in his absence—and in some small part for leaving him behind in the first place—but he was dumbfounded by the latest revelation. "They know we're here, then..."

"Yes, they do. You've brought our enemies to us yet again, Kaine." Minoru hummed idly, stepping his wood-sandaled foot down against the seeds, crushing them into a fine powder. "You are becoming something of a liability as we move forward."

"...again? What do you mean?" Kaine was confused by the wording.

"The barrier is all that keeps them at bay, Kaine Hamasaki—your friends from the Leaf." Minoru was bathed in luminous blue, and his eyes were concealed like always. Even though Minoru did not turn his head down to face Kaine's crumpled mass, the latter could feel himself being penetrated and judged.

"Kakashi and Tenzo got here that quickly? Without me noticing?" Kaine was rubbing his forehead. He shut off his chakra, canceling the light and doing his best to handle all the happenings as they stirred his thoughts around.

"How I wish it were that simple. Kakashi is a minor nuisance who would keep to himself if we kept to ours. While I had hoped to spare you from the embarrassment of your failure, I can see that you need a lesson in humility and a reminder of what we fight against." Minoru reached down to grab Kaine's standard-issue hospital shirt around the collar, lifting the younger man up to his feet and then high above the ground with the might of one arm. Kaine didn't struggle; he felt like his muscles had no weight and like his mind had been laid bare. "You were never very good at resisting genjutsu, Kaine."

Kaine thought long and hard, trying to recall a great many things. Who _was_ his contact in the Leaf? Where had he learned the complex patterns and sigils of the Anbu cipher? When did he leave; how did he return? They were all details that had previously been filled in like the missing gaps of a dream. He had felt as if he had gotten to where he was by his own completely voluntary path, but as he tried to fit the pieces together concretely, he found himself...empty. He was grasping at butterflies that vanished into dust as he got close to them.

"They aim to suffocate us, Kaine—they, meaning the siege that you brought with you from the Leaf. In the wake of your last excursion to the north, you sent a single report to your manipulator, and I can only assume that its contents were of great importance to them. I freed you from their genjutsu after your return, but its damage was done." Minoru sighed to himself, loosening his grip on Kaine's limply suspended form and setting him back on his feet.

Kaine landed wobbly, nearly dropping onto his back but catching himself with a backward step. "I sent...I sent a report? To the Leaf?" His head felt like it belonged to somebody else, and the stranger's thoughts were oppressive and dangerous. "Why don't I remember doing it, Master Minoru? What did they do to me...?"

"The same thing they would do to all of us, Kaine: enslavement." The blind man's voice kept itself steady, even with the emotional weight being thrown out. "And so we must fight them back. They are small in number, for now, but reinforcements will come. You killed three of theirs as they happened across you near Monolith Point. It was good work, but not quite good enough."

"Why didn't you tell me, Minoru...Does Akemi know? The others?" Kaine was more full of questions than he had ever been.

"They suspect, but the full magnitude is lost to them. The recent complications that cost us two of our new recruits were the result of the growing presence along our borders." Minoru paused for a moment, and then continued to speak as his point sunk in. "I would rather that you did not blame yourself for their deaths, but a healthy appreciation for your role in our present situation is...necessary. Regardless, we must deal with this problem before it consumes us."

"And the attack on that village...What was it really? What did you throw their lives away for, _actually?_" Kaine was still furious, despite feeling a tick of responsibility for the deaths. He could sympathize with Kakashi's expressed guilt now, as well. They both had bodies piling up on their consciences.

"I value truth in this village, Kaine. I will not lie to you; their lives were sacrificed for two purposes—to gauge our enemy's strength, and to give our people a cause to rally behind." Minoru turned around, his hands clasped behind his back as he walked away from Kaine's view and back to the darkness. "With a pair of martyrs, our fervor will increase. Even our junior residents will be of more use if they are fighting for revenge; don't you agree?"

Kaine shivered. "I never took you for one who was obsessed with revenge, Master Minoru."

"I avenge the truth, Kaine. The Leaf's foundation is built amid lies and deceptions. Those lies will not protect them any longer—it is nearly time for us to move out of our nest and spread our wings. Those who believe the lies of the Leaf will be forced to face the truth. The authority of truth will finally reign supreme in the Land of Fire." Minoru's ambitious declaration was all the more disturbing by how easily it was spoken. To Kaine, it was a blow to the head from a heavy branch. To Minoru, it seemed to be in the same realm as an idle compliment or a friendly chat.

"This isn't who I thought you were, Master Minoru." Kaine swallowed a hard knot in his throat. "I don't think I can agree with you on this one."

"So be it, Kaine. Your freedom is absolute, so long as you hold it in your own hands. I cannot stop you from doing as you will." Minoru smirked below his headwrap, though his face was turned from his student. "However...Should you choose to leave us, Rika Mori and Akemi Yamaguchi might take issue with your abandonment."

Rika's name was the one who stopped him. In his mind, she was his responsibility, despite being under Akemi's care. _Fiona and Mako died under her 'care',_ he reminded himself. It was a risk he was not willing to take; he couldn't let Makoto down by allowing something bad to happen to her sister. If he was going to leave, he was going to need to take the elder sibling with him. Kaine asked one more question: "Why now?"

The answer was dreaded, but expected nonetheless. "Because you forced their hand, and when their hand was forced, so was mine—killing their squad gave them a reason to increase the pressure. Beneath that pressure, we must respond in kind, lest we be swallowed under an ocean of lies."

"But who are they, really? You know the truth about us all..." Kaine turned toward the door, ready to leave. He didn't like the feeling he had, but it was his fault that things had turned out the way they had. He had to take responsibility. "So what kind of people are we dealing with?"

"Relics of the past. I never thought I would see them again." Minoru answered, as cryptically as always. Not a lie, but not the entire truth. Sometimes Kaine resented the man for his riddles and prophetic speeches.

"Yeah, well...You won't see them for long. I intend to kill every last one of them myself." Kaine clenched both fists, flexing his chakra until one hand sparked and the other dripped with fresh water. "But no more—I won't be a part of any attacks on innocent villages."

"Innocence is another lie, Kaine. There is no innocence beyond these borders of ours." Minoru hummed.

"What about the children?" Kaine countered.

"Bred by fools, raised by lies; the children are but the deceivers of the future." Minoru waved a hand over his shoulder. "Go, now. I must concentrate on the barrier."

Kaine had a lot more to say, but he had been momentarily pacified by the realization that he had brought trouble to his people. It was harrowing enough to learn that the report sent to the Leaf hadn't been a lie, but it was worse to know that his memory had been stolen from him somehow. He left Minoru's chamber and closed the door, wondering if that lost time would ever come back to him.

* * *

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	10. What Happened Back There? (Part 1)

**Thanks again for the support. It's been great!**

* * *

Akemi heard the door of Minoru's humble manor fling open only a few minutes after Kaine had slammed it shut the first time. The echoing fury resounded through the trees and into the open training field. She braced herself for Kaine's return, but to her surprise he continued to walk along the sloped hilltop that framed the arena until he was out of sight; he didn't even glance in her direction, which unsettled her somewhat—a part of her wanted to be chastised and teased for failing her mission, or even for costing him two of his recruits. His decision to totally ignore her made her heart beat faster and her chest feel heavy with uncertainty.

She tried not to dwell on the possibilities. She had already passed out the chakra paper to her students, so she instructed them on how to test their natural affinities. "Just push a little bit of chakra into it. The paper will react in a particular way, and then we'll know your nature." She picked up a square of her own, pinching it between her fingers and giving the class a moment to focus on her. "Like this," she narrated, sending chakra through the paper. It shifted from a white square to a lump of mud, crumbling into dust before their eyes. "So, according to the paper, my nature affinity is Earth." She pat her hands against one another, dusting off her gloves. "Now you try."

As the exercise began, a few of them couldn't even focus chakra like they needed to, and Akemi frowned at that. More dead weight. Others, though, proudly displayed their altered papers to their teacher with satisfied grins. Truthfully, they all still looked like children, but Akemi was thankful that at least a few of them had some potential. Rika in particular had a knack for chakra control, and Akemi wasn't surprised it when the prodigy's paper burned into ash, revealing the fiery nature lurking beneath the sweet exterior. Since Akemi lost their bet, Rika had been given special training on the side—and her determination led to rapid progress.

"Good, good," Akemi said, surveying the results. Three of the nine recruits had failed to trigger the paper. Of the successful six, two were earth nature, two were water, one was lightning, and Rika was fire. A good spread, though Akemi would have liked to have a wind user under her command. There was still hope, provided _any_ of the three failures produced results in the future. If not, she sensed another failed mission coming up. "You three," she said, directing her finger at the underachievers. "Come over here."

Two men and a woman looked at each other nervously, clutching the blank papers tight as they each tried one last fruitless push with their unresponsive chakra. It looked hopeless. "Look at me," Akemi said, pointing two fingers to them, then turning them toward her own eyes. "Look right at me, and tell me why you're here. Don't blink, or stutter, or make excuses," she said, looking to the male on the left.

It was Tito, another one of the Monolith Point natives. He was taller than average and he was built with a lot of bulk, but his face was dull and his mouth hung open as he breathed. His answer came out carefully, and he squared his shoulders to look respectful. "I'm here for the truth, sensei!" he declared.

"And what is the truth, Tito?" Akemi replied, not very impressed with his unbridled confidence.

Tito paused and furrowed his brow. "Isn't that what you're supposed to teach me?"

Akemi sighed. What else could she expect from the students of an idiot like Kaine Hamasaki? "I can't just _tell_ you the truth. You have to discover it for yourself. Now, Tito darling...how do you intend to reach into yourself and discover your personal truth if you can't even find any of the chakra that's flowing through every damned inch of your system?"

"I-I'm sorry, sensei. It's just not that easy for me." He stayed strong, his posture sturdy and clean.

"Nothing's easy," Akemi said and gave him a firm pat on the chest with an open palm; the force of it knocked the well-built young man onto his backside, kicking up dust on the impact. "You three had better know your elements by sundown, or I'm going to think you're all hopeless. Go on and huddle up in the corner to figure out what's wrong with each other...The big kids and I are going to work on changing our chakra natures to reflect our affinities. Sounds like fun, right? Get your butts in gear so you can join us the next time." She clapped her hands together, then called for attention with a stomp of her foot.

Tito and the other two failures sulked off, hands hanging down in shame as they gathered together along the edge of the training circle. "Now, as for the rest of you..." Akemi began, and then she extended into a speech she had prepared about hand signs, stamina, chakra control, chakra nature, creating elements from within, and other general knowledge. It was a long lecture, and by the time she finished, the sun was down behind the trees. She hadn't seen Kaine since he stormed out of Minoru's compound, but by the time she finished, she had almost forgotten about his moodiness. Finally, she said: "And that's why it's important to eat plenty of protein and drink a ton of water every day." She punctuated her educational spiel with a nod and a forced grin. She had dried her throat out terribly along the way, but she didn't let herself start coughing in front of her students. Just one more thing to say: "Alright, now go home and figure yourselves out. Meet back here at noon so you can all impress me with your knack for your elements."

Tito and his circle of shame hadn't made any progress, but Akemi couldn't be bothered with them any longer—at least for that night. They skulked off with the accomplished five, trying to blend in with hunched shoulders and lowered heads as they all made their ways home. Rika stayed behind as usual, her black curls bouncing freely as she skipped up to Akemi. Her dress was simple but flowing, hanging loose around her arms and keeping her covered from neck to toe.

Akemi breathed a sigh of relief as the larger class left, having always preferred a more personalized training regimen over lectures and group exercises. "Alright, now that the average folks are gone, how's my star pupil?" Akemi winked, reaching her hand up to scramble Rika's curls.

Rika enjoyed the playful assault and snickered; her hair had become messier and messier since she arrived, but it never lost its natural curls. Every strand had a life of its own. "I'm okay, Aki," she answered quietly, then her voice caught. "I miss them, though...What do you think their natures would have been?"

Akemi frowned, puffing her cheeks up a bit as she tried not to chastise her mourning companion. She wanted to be harsh—_It doesn't matter, they're dead—_but she settled on something softer. "We don't dwell on our losses, Rika. Instead, let's work to prevent any more of them. How does that sound?"

It had been five days since the mission, but the absence of Mako and Fiona still stung teacher and student alike. Akemi liked to look tough in front of Kaine, because any sign of weakness could eventually be used against her, but she worried just like he did about their path as a village. The difference between the two of them was that she had known the raid was coming; she had a more practical head on her shoulders than her blue-tressed male counterpart. Low supplies meant desperation, and desperation usually meant it was time to start making sacrifices. The forest had been abundant with berries and nuts in the past, but there were steadily more mouths to feed in the village and steadily fewer sources to harvest. It was poor planning on their part to secure recruits before developing better sources of nourishment, but it was too late for regrets.

Rika had been thinking deeply as well, about many things. First and foremost, she thought of her family. When she spoke to her master in private, she was still thinking of them. "You don't think we'll end up raiding Monolith Point, do you, Aki?"

"I don't know, Rika," Akemi answered. Her answer was mostly true, but while she didn't positively _know,_ it did make perfect sense to assume that their war path would eventually find the small town. What didn't make sense was telling that to Rika and crushing her spirit, so she stayed vague. "Let's deal with that kind of stuff as it comes. Right now, I'm supposed to be making you stronger." Akemi put her feet apart and entered her fighting stance.

"Right," Rika answered, looking disheartened with her eyes pointing to the ground beneath her feet.

"Hey, you won't get anywhere by studying the dirt; you're supposed to be a fire nature," Akemi said, and she mercilessly delivered an attack as she spoke. She threw a punch across Rika's cheek. Her fist connected firmly and sent the slender target into a spin. Rika caught her balance, though—a week before that, she might have fallen flat on her face, but she was getting good very quickly and never lost her balance anymore. "Keep your head in it, or you're going to be the next one to die, get it? Hamasaki's one of our best, and even he's getting thrashed by the people we're up against. What chance do you think _you_ have if you don't stay focused?"

Rika answered with a thoughtful deep breath in and out, and then she clapped her hands together to make a seal. It was the seal of the Tiger, and it was known as the foundation for most fire style techniques. "You said it was like this, right sensei...?" She was looking for approval; she had absorbed the entirety of Akemi's dull lecture, and she had listened most intently to the portion about which signs correlated to which elements.

"Something like that," Akemi shot back with an amused smirk, still in a battle stance.

Rika took the deepest breath that her lungs could contain, and then she followed all the ideal procedures to knead her chakra into fire and expel it from her chest and out of her mouth. To her own surprise, a substantial puff of searing flames rose out from her throat and filled the night air with a warm orange glow. Akemi was surprised as well, though the 'substantial' amount of flame was still not quite enough to reach her. On the contrary, Rika seemed to be quite a danger to herself. The radiating heat from the small fireball caught onto the flowing sleeves of Rika's dress, beginning as singed fabric and progressing into fully burning arms. She flailed a bit, trying to smother the flames by fanning them through the air—for one with an affinity for fire, she seemed to be woefully unaware of how it worked.

Akemi briefly laughed at the predicament, but she also acted quickly to squash it. Drawing out her knife, she grabbed Rika by the shoulder and sliced into the fabric of her dress, shredding the seams where the arms connected to the main body. She stripped both tubes of cloth away from Rika's arms, preserving her flesh beneath just in time. As they fell to the ground, the discarded sleeves scattered into ash. "Okay, okay...First off, good job getting it on your first try. Second off, I think you'll do better if you dress more like that." Akemi gave Rika's bare upper arm a pat with her gloved palm. Unlike Tito, Rika didn't fall over.

"I guess so," Rika replied, her face whiter than usual as she recovered from panic, but her cheeks were also painted a deep red from embarrassment. She looked like a geisha, thanks to the contrast. She analyzed herself, extending her arms forward to gain an appreciation for the lack of heavy dress. From the shoulders down to her fingertips, she was bare, and it actually felt refreshing in the cool evening atmosphere. The only downside was that she could see the scar on her arm that ran from wrist to elbow. She winced as she recalled how it had gotten there, and her hand snapped onto her skin to try to cover it up.

Akemi tilted her head. "Whatcha got there, Rika?" She asked as she grabbed her pupil by the wrist and stretched her arm, moving the covering hand away to get a good look. "Yeesh, that's a nasty scar. Is this why you left?" Akemi ran her thumb along the bumpy length of the unsightly slash. It was aged, so probably not something recent enough to motivate her departure. Still, it was a point of curiosity, and Akemi kept fiddling with the imperfect tissue for an uncomfortably long time.

Rika cleared her throat, as if trying to snap Akemi out of her intense fascination, but it was no use. She felt a bit warm under the unusually close attention, but she kept her mind on the task at hand. Sort of. "No, this isn't why I left," Rika answered simply. She tugged herself away, breaking free of Akemi's loose grip so she could reclaim her arm. She felt very acutely aware of the mark, but she couldn't rightly deny the practicality of getting rid of her sleeves. Any future practice with fire techniques would be made much easier without the fabric flopping around in her face.

"Fine, but you're going to owe me an explanation soon. Since you're learning so quickly, I won't need to teach you for much longer. When my end of the bargain's held up, it'll be your turn." Akemi winked, stepping back from Rika. The scar added to the intrigue, and as each day passed, Akemi was more and more glad that she managed to permanently take Rika away from Kaine—even though it was the result of a fluke.

"Don't worry, I haven't forgotten, Aki. Let's keep going." Rika had quickly gotten over her self-consciousness, and she lunged at Akemi to continue their hand-to-hand training.

* * *

After the training had come to an end, Akemi walked Rika home and told her goodnight. Within her line of sight was Kaine's abode. It had been unoccupied for more than two weeks, but on that night there was a reason to visit. She wanted to make sure that things were square with Kaine, so once she had helped Rika close the terribly lopsided 'door' to her stick hut, Akemi wandered over to Kaine's own immaculate door and knocked hard. There was no answer at first, so she knocked again.

The third time she knocked, a shirtless Kaine with bed-head answered the door and looked at her with a sneer. "What is it, Akemi?" he asked, groggily wiping his right eye and then yawning. Surprisingly enough to Akemi, Kaine didn't feel all that unusual anymore. Perhaps his anger had settled down since he was back in his own bed.

"I just want to make sure you're okay, Hamasaki. I know things have been rough since our test." Akemi offered a hand to shake, and Kaine looked down at it with a half-lidded stare. She insisted further. "Let's just put it behind us, yeah?"

Kaine's chest, shoulders and abdomen were littered with smaller scars—usually left by stabbing objects. His scars didn't capture Akemi's attention like Rika's did, though. She had seen her almost-brother shirtless more times than she could even count anymore. As Kaine refused to shake her hand, Akemi instead butted into his house and pushed past him with a strong shoulder. He groaned in protest, but he didn't force her to leave. In fact, after a momentary pause, he stepped aside to let her in and then closed the door behind her while twisting a lock from the inside. He shuffled drearily back to his bed and climbed into it, pulling his itchy wool sheet over his body and groaning sleepily. "You lost two of my students, Akemi," he said through a murmur.

"Don't start blaming me; they lost _themselves_." Akemi sat down in one of Kaine's chairs. He was the finest craftsman in the Truth; at least, that's what she had always thought of him. All his furniture was sturdy, and he was the only one in the entire village—besides Minoru—who had a working doorknob. Kaine even made his own weaponry, rather than relying on the mass-produced stuff in the armory. Akemi tried to give a reminder to her compatriot: "I can't protect everybody I go out with, Hamasaki—neither can you, and you should already know that." Akemi fiddled with one of Kaine's home-built kunai, balancing its point on the tip of her index finger. The sharp blade drew a dot of blood, but she didn't seem to mind as it gradually leaked over her knuckle.

Kaine's reply was muffled as he spoke into his feathery pillow. "They shouldn't have been sent out in the first place; why did you agree to take them with you?"

Akemi tossed up the kunai and caught it in her opposite hand. "It was an order. I know you don't really respect authority, but Minoru's my boss—our boss—and I'm not going to refuse his requests. If he wants to send out the new kids like cattle to be slaughtered, he's got a reason for it and I don't want to be the one to question him."

"You really do need me around, then," Kaine stated with a light streak of cruelty. He was judging her roughly, but on top of his attempted guilt trip he also knew that he was speaking truth. Akemi didn't say anything back, and her silence was enough confirmation that he was right—she liked having him around, even if she didn't say it very often. A long few minutes of quiet eventually came to an end when Kaine revealed his reason for allowing her to come inside. "I want to know what happened. _Exactly _what happened." He pulled himself up from his pillow and propped onto his elbows, looking to Akemi where she sat. "Will you tell me?"

Akemi thumbed her chin, contemplating for a moment. She shrugged and leaned back in the comfortable chair. "Sure, Hamasaki. I couldn't keep your kids alive, so the least I can do is tell you why not. In the short version, we ran into opposition. The longer version is..."

* * *

**Five Days Earlier:**

"Shouldn't we wait until Hamasaki gets back? This seems pretty risky," Akemi said to Minoru within his dark chamber. Unlike Kaine, she wasn't bothered by the cramped conditions, nor did she worry about her master's secret intentions. She spoke as easily there as she did anywhere else because she didn't fear him.

"He may not be coming back at all, Akemi. We must not forget that he is in Leaf custody." Minoru was standing in front of her in the darkness, hands folded in front of his torso. "Our people cannot wait. We only have supplies for another week—two, perhaps, if we strictly ration what is left."

Akemi nodded, sucking on the corner of her lower lip. "And we don't want to ration, do we?"

"We will not restrict our people—so we must take what we need from someplace else." Minoru wasn't budging; his devotion to free action was on the borderline of being obsessive.

Akemi shrugged; it wasn't her place to question him, even if she had personal doubts. Making the suggestion that they should wait for Kaine was the strongest thing she had done in defiance of Minoru's intentions in years. Even a minor, quickly-dropped dispute was uncommon, given how strong her loyalty was. "Fine, fine. So, since there's no Hamasaki, who should I take with me? It really shouldn't take much time; do you think I should grab Medo away from his class and drag him along?"

Minoru shook his head, and Akemi's keen eyes made out the gesture of refusal in the abyss. "No. He has work to do; two of his students show a great level of promise, and I would rather not risk his position."

Akemi didn't think to ask why it was alright to risk _her_ position instead. To her, it was all standard fare—she was the one in the village who was trusted to complete any task, no matter the difficulty. And she did it every time, too. "Then who? I could do it alone, but I don't think I'll be able to bring much back with me if I don't have any pack mules."

"Take Rika Mori, Mako Kita, and Fiona Uno." Minoru listed them off easily, having already known precisely who he wanted to send.

Akemi gave another nod. "That ought to do, then. See you later, Master Minoru." And that was that. She left the chamber without another word spoken by either party, and went to the residential area to fetch her roughshod 'team.' Rika's house was still disappointing, but at least it somewhat _resembled _a cheap storage shed now, rather than a pile of disjointed wood like it had been last week. Mako and Fiona were living together; they were some kind of item back in their home town—boyfriend and girlfriend from what Akemi could tell. Their combined residence was actually decent looking from the outside, but it didn't seem quite large enough to comfortably house two people.

When the couple answered the door, they seemed cheerful enough. "Hello sensei," Fiona said in greeting. She was the same age as Mako, if maybe a few months older. The lovers were the same height, and they shared the same shade of dark hair. They could have been siblings, but Akemi had previously seen them kissing in a rather enthusiastic way, so that probably wasn't it. "What's up?"

"You're coming with me. Minoru's got a job for us." Akemi curled her finger, beckoning them to come out of their place. "Shouldn't take more than a few hours, but don't leave the pot boiling or anything."

"A job?" Mako asked, his arm slung around Fiona's waist. "Will we need weapons?"

"We shouldn't have much trouble, but we'll stop by the armory on our way out to stock up just in case. I'm gonna fetch Rika; could you two meet me there?" Akemi bobbed her head toward the outskirts of the village, where the weapons storage had been built long ago.

Fiona and Mako looked at one another, wearing hesitant faces. Some silent exchange took place involving eyebrows, mouth movements and hand gestures, and then they looked back to their teacher and nodded in unison. "Alright, sensei," they said together and then left. Akemi thought it was almost creepy how they seemed to synch up, getting a chill as she turned around to approach Rika's hut.

Akemi wanted to knock on Rika's door, but the flimsy twigs all stacked together to make it would have probably blown away if she tried. Instead, she peeked into one of the numerous holes in the wall and whispered through. "Psst, hey, Rika. Come out here." Akemi pressed her ear to the hole, listening for movement. Rika was home; she knew it. Probably asleep, though. "Rika!" she said more forcefully, and she was answered by a gasp and a rustle of movement. Rika was inside, visible in part as she rushed around gathering up pieces of clothing to dress herself. Akemi snickered from outside. "Sleeping late, huh?"

Rika emerged from her hovel fully clothed and at attention, but her hair was a disaster. She didn't seem to mind that, though. "I was up all night practicing that exercise you showed me." Rika held up a brown, discarded leaf. In demonstration, she pressed the frond to her forehead and puffed her cheeks. She took her hand away slowly, and while the leaf looked like it was about to fall, Rika caught it with her chakra and took a deep, slow breath. It held there steadily.

Akemi's eyes opened a bit wider. "You catch on quick, don't you?" She brought her hand up and chaotically flicked the leaf, plucking it away from Rika's chakra and sending it off into the wind. "We're being sent for supplies. You up for it?"

Rika nodded, her hand to her chest in salute. "Absolutely, sensei!"

"Good. Let's go, then. Fiona and Mako should already be waiting for us by the armory." Akemi double-checked her own hip, finding the thick black hilt of her favorite dagger right where she left it. She was technically a ninja, but she preferred the bulkier short-blade over any kunai or shuriken. She never wore a vest full of tools like many others did. She preferred freedom of movement over anything else, and her knife was all the equipment she ever needed. On missions, she usually did strap a belt around her waist, connecting it to a satchel hanging down over her backside in order to carry provisions and communication supplies.

The visit to the armory was by-the-book. Akemi's three team members loaded up on smoke bombs, kunai and body armor. Rika, Fiona and Mako all looked bulky and clumsy in their dark blue vests, which may have been why Akemi didn't bother to put one on. She liked looking like herself, not like the others. To that end, her headband may not have been pretty, but it was certainly unique.

"Get some bags, and then let's move out. I'll explain along the way." Akemi clapped, and within minutes of walking they were outside of the Truth Village's concealment barrier and exposed to the uncharted wilderness that separated them from the Land of Fire. The empty trees weren't much of a threat, nor were the leftover bees and mosquitoes who hadn't taken refuge from the oncoming cold. The forest seemed dead as booted feet trampled crispy leaves, breaking them down into a fine powder that mixed with the dull brown dirt of the terrain. Roots from the surrounding trees were peeking out from the ground, occasionally making for a difficult step. Fortunately for Akemi's dignity, none of her three students tripped over a stationary branch.

"Aren't you going to explain?" Rika asked as they trekked through the unbeaten path. Akemi would have liked to move high, through the tree branches, but while Rika could probably keep up—almost, anyway—the synchronized pair of lovebirds were not nearly fit enough for such a grueling journey.

"Right," Akemi said as they walked briskly. "Minoru's sending us out for supplies, but we haven't got anything to trade for them. That means we have to—"

Mako cut her off. "What about our weapons? They're nicely made, so why don't we trade some of them?" He turned his unassuming but wild eyes toward Akemi.

"We need our weapons, Mako," Akemi replied, keeping it short and simple. She didn't want to insult him in front of Fiona, right before such a devious mission. They weren't dangerous to her, but if the two of them were having second thoughts, it would be a headache at some point. She wanted to keep them sated. "We're not going to hurt anybody. We're just going to sneak into their food stores and sneak out with everything we can carry. We're shinobi, remember? Move silently, stick to the shadows, all that junk?"

Mako flexed his brow; clearly he had doubts. He saw that Akemi was in a dark pink top without sleeves, and her pants were a bright tan, all baggy and ruffled. She hardly seemed like a ninja, but then again, Mako didn't have a headband like she did. He couldn't criticize his teacher, either—he had seen her sparring with Rika, and it was a thing that inspired awe. Maybe he had just been given the wrong idea about what a ninja was supposed to be. "Right," he said uncertainly after some consideration. Fiona was looking at him apprehensively, seeming to pick up on the subtle misgivings. "Don't we need food more than we need weapons right now, though?"

"Starving to death is no good, but what's worse is this: you need a sword, and you reach for one, but when you draw it from its sheathe, it turns out to be a zucchini." Akemi cleared her throat. "Anyway...it's a small town, so there shouldn't be much resistance even if we're caught. Leaf shinobi don't come out this far unless somebody requests it. Last I heard there were only two of them around, and they were near Monolith Point. That's several miles away from where we're going, so this should be fine."

Kaine had gone missing somewhere out there, and a part of Akemi wanted to break off from their mission to go find him. She quickly thought better of it. It was risky enough to take three poorly-developed trainees on a resupply mission, let alone a rescue mission that would supposedly involve a monster like Kakashi Hatake. She decided to lead them to her assigned destination. When they arrived, it was a town even smaller than Monolith Point, though the buildings were arranged more traditionally. There was no massive wheel design; it was only a few blocks of houses, connected by cobblestone streets and surrounding a market center.

Akemi stopped along the outskirts, leaping herself up to perch upon a tree. The naked branches were poor cover, but she far enough away to avoid detection by a normal eye. Despite its smallness, the small burg was made important by its hefty stash of food. Silos framed the market, filled to the top with grains and nuts. They were stocked up for the coming season, like squirrels who had buried enough nuts to survive the winter. They should be able to spare a portion to feed the needy, Akemi justified.

It was too bright out to make a move, so Akemi whispered down to her students who had taken more traditional hiding places behind the tree. Fiona and Mako were holding hands behind one that was a few paces away, and Rika was glued to the base of Akemi's own perch. "We'll wait here until the sun sets. We don't want to be seen." She then hopped down to stand beside Rika and give her a reassuring thump on the shoulder with her fist. "I didn't spot any guards. They don't think they have much to steal, I guess."

"I wish we didn't have to rob them," Rika answered, confessing her qualms with a pensive look toward the town. "Isn't there some way we could convince them to help us? Most people aren't bad, you know?"

Akemi huffed, closing her eyes and turning to sit on her butt in the dry leaves. "If you expect people to do good things, you're going to be hurt a lot, Rika. Let's remember that we're doing this for our own people—we're fighting to survive out here; don't you ever forget that. Even if you haven't got a weapon to your neck, you're always going to be in danger from someone or something."

Rika wanted to say something more, but she decided that it could wait. Fiona and Mako already looked worried enough, so Rika put on a brave face like Akemi's to balance it out and hopefully restore some of their confidence. Akemi smiled softly. "We're not going to take everything. This is just a stop-gap solution until we find a better source of food; they might not even notice it's gone." They wouldn't notice immediately, that was. Not until their supplies ran out a few days or weeks earlier than they were expected to. As Rika fell silent, the time passed slowly, but night descended after a long stretch of stillness and Akemi sprung up gratefully. She wasn't nearly as anxious as Kaine, but she didn't like sitting around much more than he did. "Time to move."

Fiona and Mako had been whispering a short distance away, but they stood up in unison when beckoned to. Akemi snapped her fingers, then pointed toward the town. "Stay behind me, keep low, stay quiet...and if we get caught, aim to kill. No witnesses and no cowardice allowed."

"We have to kill...?" Rika asked, shivering lightly as the night grew cold.

"On second thought, don't worry about it. I'll handle the rough stuff if it comes to that," Akemi said, trying to reassure the ragtag group. "Just stay out of sight and follow my lead. If it goes well, the whole village will feast heartily tonight."

Out of anxiousness, Mako and Fiona each drew their kunai, and Akemi put her palm over her face. "Gah, put those away before you hurt each other." She rubbed her cheeks between her palms, coming to the realization that the night was going to be long and nerve-wracking. "Actually, whatever...just...don't poke me in the back. I'll get mad." She hummed, bending at the knees and lowering her stance, looking behind herself to make sure that her tag-alongs were following the example. Not perfect, but good enough. She stepped silently through the foliage, miraculously noiseless amidst the crunchy leaves—her companions were not so silent, but they were doing well enough to be passed off as background noise.

They got to the town when darkness had fully set in. Save for the pale moon and the twinkling stars, all of the lights had gone out. No bulbs or lanterns were lit, and the coast seemed clear. The stone roads were avoided; the raiding party stuck to the grassy segments skirting the buildings. They stayed below windows and avoided passing in front of doors that might have opened suddenly. Moving through alleys and gliding around scattered obstacles, they found the largest of the town's three storage silos, and Akemi held a hand out toward Fiona. "You guys'll need rope to climb that high," she advised. Fiona nodded, too jittery to even breathe, let alone speak—she produced her rope and offered it to Akemi, who took it and threw it up and over a stray plank high on the storage tower. Snagging it tight and giving a strong tug, Akemi gave the thumbs up. "Should be good; climb up and fill your sacks." She stepped away from the rope and took the easy way—a strong jump took her up and through the ventilation opening near the conical roof.

Rika took the rope first, as she was the bravest of the three. She yanked on it to test its hold; once, twice, then a third time. She was stronger than she looked, and once she was sure of the stability she gripped the rope and hauled herself up to join her sensei, who had already stuffed an entire sack with grains and slung it over her shoulder to jump back down with it. "Let's get a move on, guys," she whispered, patting Mako on the shoulder as he took the rope. "We're already close to being finished."

Mako nodded toward her reassurance, but like Fiona he was entirely too nervous to speak aloud. He couldn't depend on himself to stay quiet, if he ever actually opened his mouth. All his pent up excitement would pour out like water from a broken spigot. He trembled as he climbed, but he saw Rika perched against the open window leaning in to take rations from the top, and the sense of teamwork encouraged him. He was near the top when it all went wrong—a shuriken thrown from the shadows sliced directly through the top end of the rope, severing its hold to the silo and slackening in Mako's grip. He yelped, losing his composure and then screaming helplessly. For talent like Akemi, it was like a small hop, but for a novice like Mako such a fall could have been fatal.

Fortunately for the dark-haired young man, Akemi had been paying keen attention, and she sprung from the ground to catch his fall in her arms and twist herself around to land against the side of the silo. Her chakra allowed her to cling to the wall, and she set her eyes to work. She hadn't seen where the four-pointed blade had come from, but she knew another would be coming soon enough. With Mako supported over her shoulder, Rika gasping above and Fiona staggering backward in shock on the ground, Akemi could feel herself caught in a bind. If it was a single ambusher, perhaps a night watchman, she would have no difficulty. She didn't suspect it would be so simple, though. The throw had been too precise. Mako was thrashing and whimpering in her grip as if he hadn't yet realized that he was caught safely. "Quiet down, you idiot," Akemi whispered hoarsely, jostling Mako in her grip so that he would feel the support of her strength. Rika was stranded for the time being, and Akemi didn't dare to turn her back on her surroundings; she anticipated another attack, and she could only handle so much at one time. "Rika, jump into the silo and bury yourself in the grain. I'll come for you in a minute, but first I have to know what we're up against. When I make an opening, we need to be ready to get out _quick, _so don't dig too deep."

"Yes!" Rika nodded, following the instructions and diving into the silo from her perch, concealing herself within the top layers of the fluffy granules of wheat and rice. Although she was quick to act, she was just as concerned as the other two freshmen were. Akemi would protect them all, though—Rika had absolute faith in that.

* * *

**Next update coming soon. Leave a review and let me know what you think!**


	11. What Happened Back There? (Part 2)

**Here we go again!**

* * *

Akemi was forced to try to weigh the situation quickly, because another attack came from the concealing darkness. The hurled shuriken were spinning in the air with an upward arc that indicated that they came from afar. Somebody was launching the deadly stars from outside the tiny village, yet their distant targets were being hit with precision. Satisfied that Rika was tucked safely into the grains and with Mako secure in her arms, Akemi made a dive for Fiona as the latter stumbled along at ground level, frantically looking left and right. Three more shuriken were incoming, and each of them had been on course to stick the unaware and frightened young woman—although Fiona had drawn her kunai, she had no idea how to properly use it outside of a training exercise.

Air hissed by Akemi's ears as she bolted toward the ground; Mako was still being held over one of her shoulders while both of her hands were busy making signs. She could see the spiraling projectiles on course to collide with Fiona, but Akemi knew that she would arrive before they connected. After her signs were formed, she stretched one hand out to stick a landing on her palm, slamming her weight into the grass and forcing up a defensive wall of thick mud to absorb the hits from the shuriken. Fiona shrieked, having hardly noticed the movement, but she calmed when she saw who had arrived. Akemi vaulted off her hand to land gracefully on both feet, then she set her stammering passenger down on the ground to hide behind the wall she had erected. "Keep your heads down and stay behind this barricade," she whispered, patting the sturdy earthen shield and then looking up to the silo. "I'm going back up for Rika."

Fiona and Mako threw their arms around one another and sank to their knees, cowering pitifully. Akemi understood their fear, but she was still deeply disappointed by how they broke down. She faced the danger as well, but she didn't have the luxury of hiding behind a wall until it was all over. One jump cleared the distance between the ground to the ventilation opening, and Akemi reached the inner chamber of the silo. She called out into the dark air: "Rika, it's me; come out, we have to go!" She was digging around in the grain, and just as Rika was about to emerge, Akemi found her hand and grasped it tightly to yank her free of her hiding place. "You're not hit, are you?"

"No, Aki, I'm alright; what's happening out there?" Rika was speaking with a shudder in her voice, and it was easy to tell that she wasn't breathing reliably. She acted like just another frightened mouse charged into Akemi's care. By comparison, though, at least she had the composure to speak even if she was shaking.

"We've been spotted. I don't think it's a patrolman—this one's too good. Fiona and Mako are outside. I put up a wall for them to use as cover—so far, the attacks are all coming from one direction, but we need to get back to them and make our escape, because that can change at any second." As she explained, she was picking Rika up and looping the grain-covered woman's arms around her neck, then tucking her hands under Rika's skirted legs to carry her completely. "I'm going," she warned, then leaped with inhuman grace out of the silo to land with only the slightest of thuds against the ground several stories below. As she was falling, a pair of shuriken whizzed by her face. One of the blades came close enough to knick away a lock of Akemi's hair, just barely missing Rika as well. After she landed, Akemi let Rika down and quickly checked Fiona and Mako for injuries. They were in the same place as they had been when she left, and were still shaking exactly like the autumn leaves that whirled in the wind around them.

Akemi cursed as she ran her hand along the strands of her hair, feeling the clean cut that was carved through her locks. It would grow back, but it meant that she had nearly been wounded, despite how quickly she had fallen. To be so accurate against a moving target, and from such a distance—not only were they better than typical guardsman, they even surpassed many of the skilled shinobi that Akemi had known. Their skill level wouldn't have mattered if she were alone—she wasn't exactly 'average,' herself—her only concern was for her students, who were in a situation that was far above their league. They were looking at her in terror and desperation, waiting for the next order to come, hoping against hope that it would be enough to save their lives. "Grab onto me, we're going underground." Akemi stated. As she reached her hand out as an offering, she was interrupted by something being lobbed over her wall. It was round, sizzling, and sparking: a bomb ball.

"_Damn!_" Akemi cried out reflexively, changing the course of her hand away from Rika's to instead grasp at the hissing sphere. With a swift dive, she grabbed the ticking time bomb and contorted her body to twist her momentum heavily toward the end of her arm. She released her grasp, and the twist had given the bomb enough momentum to fling out and away from Akemi and her pupils. The incendiary device burst abruptly into flames, smoke, sound, and shrapnel, but Akemi slammed her foot into the ground to put up a wall between herself and the bulk of the concussive force. Given that they were in a narrow alley between residences, the explosive took out a chunk of the houses on each side of the slim path, leaving behind licking flames that were slow to spread—they _were_ spreading, though.

As she was about to repeat her order, she was cut off by another bomb being lobbed to her position. While her second wall had protected the team from the initial explosion, it had also pinned them all into a small space. The fuse on this ball was shorter, too—Akemi grabbed that one as well and aimed her throw upward, chucking it out of the confined quarters she had created. Once the orb left her hold, she dove her body down to cover the trio of Monolith Point natives, wrapping them beneath her span with bracing arms. As the bomb exploded above, she considered making another wall on top of herself to box them all up completely, and then using the concealment to escape through the soil below using her earth technique. As that thought ran its course, she was ambushed from beneath by somebody who had apparently come up with a similar idea. Two darkly gloved hands emerged from the earth and grabbed her by the ankles just as the ball erupted above. A wave of blunt force cut through the air and pressed Akemi downward against the flimsy forms of her trembling, living burdens.

Following the strong force came a wave of shrapnel, and Akemi felt needle-points digging into her back and shoulders from above. They didn't puncture her too terribly deep—she had thick skin. The more immediate issue was coming from below. Her ears were ringing from the noise and her vision was blurred by the impact of the blast, but she collected herself as quickly as possible. She felt herself being pulled down, as if her would-be assassin was thinking to drag her into the depths of the earth to suffocate her—perhaps he hadn't noticed that she was a very adept earth wielder. Akemi weaved the necessary signs, hitting the ground with both hands and forcing the crust to clap itself together below her. Her technique instantly crushed her attacker with the pressure of a few hundred pounds of soil that closed in from all sides. She heard the simultaneous crunch of numerous bones, and then the grip on her ankles weakened as the contents of the dark gloves went limp. The ground had risen into a small peak thanks to the mounting pressure of her burial technique. She kicked the dead hands off of her boots and grunted in irritation. One down—how many more to go?

"You guys want to live? Watch my back—I'm going out there." Akemi stood up, still covered by her eight-foot wall on two sides and spreading fire on the other two. She looked over her shoulder to examine her prickly wounds, seeing that the exploding ball had been loaded with numerous senbon. She didn't feel especially numb, nor especially pained. No poison, then—at least nothing fast. Akemi jumped from the ground to perch on the balls of her feet against the flat crest of her own wall, crouched down with her knife drawn and her eyes scanning the horizon. The same darkness that had been working in their favor during the infiltration was now a curse upon her as she scoured the treeline for signs of life, hoping to spot a flame or spark. The bombs were being lit somehow, and the next one to be triggered would ideally tip her off.

Rather than being forced to wait for the telling ignition, Akemi was given some unexpected aid from above—Astor had followed them, and he had been busy scouting from the sky. He let out his signature call, and then he swooped down onto a very specific position in a very specific tree. The flapping mini-missile collided with heavy meat, making a thud that was heard from a few dozen yards away. Akemi smirked, thinking to herself that the obnoxious fowl had his uses after all. The smell of burnt gunpowder filled the air as the dust settled from the twin explosions, and it made tracking nearby threats difficult. Akemi had a keen sense of smell, but it was being scrambled by the soot as it clogged her nostrils and forced a cough from her throat. The creeping inferno behind her was doing no good either as it spread to more houses. Voices were beginning to stir around in the village. Explosions did sometimes tend to wake people from a peaceful slumber in a most unpleasant manner.

As the mission fell apart, Akemi caught sight of more shuriken coming from a different tree than the one Astor had chosen. A few degrees to the left of his original swoop, Akemi heard the bird's squawking and a man's pained wails, so she had to assume that her flying stalker had the upper hand in the squabble. Kaine had trained the filthy buzzard well—Akemi had to give them both some credit for the assistance. Her knife went to work, deflecting the next volley of shuriken from the third yet-unseen assailant. She knocked one of them left, one right, and one down, ensuring that they all landed on the outside end of her defensive wall. Alarm bells were starting to ring, and panic was setting in as residents awoke one by one to a growing blaze. That emergency signal was Akemi's chance to use the ensuing pandemonium as cover. With no more bombs coming in, she turned to hop back down to her partners and offer her hand again. "Grab on!" she shouted, pumped with adrenaline and eager to flee. She knew when retreat was necessary and she didn't often worry about keeping her pride intact in the heat of battle.

Rika grabbed first, then Fiona and Mako grabbed higher up on her arm. Akemi formed her hand into a flat, chopping pose and aimed a strike for the dirt, seeking to split it open just wide enough to tunnel through. She was countered by a powerful electric jolt skittering through the ground, breaking the land apart and scattering her attempted escape with an intelligent use of elemental weaknesses. "New plan—jump!" Akemi launched herself away from the ground, barely avoiding the encroaching shock wave and taking her students with her. All three of them were still holding a death grip on their sensei's right hand and arm. Akemi landed atop a building that was half-burned, and a glance over the township revealed that many innocents were fleeing their homes.

What Akemi saw next was something of a shock—the shuriken were no longer being aimed at her, but toward the evacuating masses. The place was a small, nameless village with only a few dozen residents, and Akemi watched every one of those few dozen put to the slaughter in waves of three or four at a time. Screams of fright were routinely silenced mid-breath. The unbridled terror was turning to gurgling and gasping as necks were shredded and lungs were punctured by penetrating blades. Akemi's resolve weakened for just a moment—this town had been one of her stops during her recent drive for recruits. She had even recognized some of the faces that were suddenly lying dead, decorated by blood seeping out over their lips.

Akemi gathered herself together again, standing up with her trusted knife gripped tightly in her hand. "We're not going to be able to run yet," Akemi said pointedly. Even if she had wanted to flee, there were too many factors preventing it from happening. It had nothing to do with revenge or emotion, or so she told herself. The indiscriminate killing came as a surprise to her, but only in part—she quickly decided that the Leaf must have been involved. Minoru had told her much about their atrocities, and the turn of events seemed quite typical of those stories. Akemi decided that it was time to thin their merciless ranks a little bit—at least enough to make a path. Rika stood up, but Mako and Fiona were still hugging against each other and whispering into one another's ears. That was all well and good for them, but Akemi and Rika were less than keen on being left to fight on their own.

As long as they were on the roof, the lightning that pulsed through the ground would have difficulty reaching them through the wooden foundation. Akemi was actively seeking the source of the crackling energy, and she still had to worry about more shuriken on top of it. The screaming populace of the burg slowly became calmer and quieter until a final _hrk! _resounded through the air—and then there was silence, save for the crackling of the spreading fire. Akemi's small band represented the last breaths being taken in the village, and it gave them all an oppressively lonely feeling. With the death of the last civilian, the shuriken were once again aimed at Akemi.

The grain silos were catching aflame by then, too, which thoroughly dashed any hopes of securing a good haul to bring back home. What had begun as an isolated scorch had somehow grown to envelop the entire village. It hardly made sense, given how tame the spread had been at the beginning. At the rate things were going, the Truth ninjas would be extraordinarily lucky if even one of the four managed to survive.

Rika had heard the screams of the people come to a total stop, and so had Akemi, but the two women were determined to leave the tortured agony in the backs of their minds. Fiona and Mako were not so poised, but a harsh glare from Akemi was followed by equally harsh words of encouragement. "I'm not going to die today, but I swear to you...If you two choose to let yourselves get killed off like sniveling cowards, I won't lose any sleep over it!" Even as she shouted at the pair of dead-weights, Akemi was deflecting more shuriken off of their intended path. "Stand and fight; if you're going to say goodbye, then at least force your enemy to remember you!"

The brief pep talk seemed to invigorate Mako, who stood up at least, but Fiona was still curled in a ball on the slanted wooden roof of a mostly-scorched home. Whichever family had once lived in the house had surely been lying dead in the street by then, a fact which made Akemi's grim ultimatum all the more real. Fiona stuttered: "I-I've never seen so many bodies, so much blood..." She barely managed to say it in an empty, wispy voice. Tears were streaming from her eyes, and Mako looked up to Akemi with a desperate gaze.

"Get her out of here," Mako pleaded. "She can't be here..."

"It doesn't work like that. We'll be picked off like the rest of them if we turn our backs and try to run right now." Driving the point home, Akemi deflected more hissing shuriken—though the attack continued, the bombs were no longer coming, and Astor had emerged from the treeline with a victorious call. Score another one for their side. It was hard to celebrate any victories in the wake of such disturbing violence, but Akemi was glad to embrace any sliver of hope that remained. With suddenness, Kunai were thrown from an entirely new position. At the time, Akemi was too distracted by another volley of shuriken; she could not deflect from both sides. Mako and Fiona were directly in the line of fire. "Rika!" Akemi called urgently.

Rika Mori, the latest star prodigy of the Truth, brandished a kunai and exhaled all her breath. She reached deep inside of her mind and allowed the little voice in her head to take over. She trusted in herself to protect her friends, and her arm began to flex and turn as if by its own will. The sharp clang of metallic impact sounded once, twice, three times and then more. Sparks flew from Rika's weapon and heavy thunks of wooden impact rose above the roaring fire. Countless enemy projectiles were diverted from their true aim to stick harmlessly into the dead lumber. Akemi was momentarily distracted by the flashy display, but she didn't let any violent steel get by her, either. Mako was trying to snap Fiona out of her daze, but it seemed to be of no use.

Meanwhile, Astor was hard at work homing in on the next target that hid within the darkness, and he called out his discovery before moving in for another swoop. "Kick his ass, Astor!" Akemi cheered, raising one fist in triumph while her other hand effortlessly blocked shuriken with her silvery dagger. Eventually, her enemy would run out of ammunition—or patience—and then would either show himself, or retreat. If their fearsome hawk continued to pick the assassins out, then that deadline would come even sooner than expected. No matter how well-trained a ninja may have been, it was difficult to defend against an equally well-trained hunting hawk. Though Astor's attacks were usually less than fatal, they were at least crippling. The pecks and talon-jabs did enough good to turn the tide, if nothing else.

Rika's burst of speed and skill continued until Astor's second target was found and swiftly dealt with. A long shout followed by the sound of snapping branches indicated that somebody's balance had been lost and that the bird had once again claimed a win. One last kunai finalized its arc from the vacated tree, but Rika was there to intercept it, throwing her arm in a wide sweep to heavily knock it off course and into the night sky. It whistled through the air until it collided with a window, breaking the glass and allowing more oxygen into the room behind it. As a consequence, the nearby cabin was caught further alight.

After Astor's two-to-zero triumph, silence fell and the shuriken stopped streaming in. Akemi shushed her students and crouched down onto her toes with her knees bent. Fire was getting closer from behind, and their roof would not hold up much longer. "Don't move yet. They're waiting to see what we're gonna do." So far, she knew of at least two more dangers that were hidden away. The shuriken thrower had moved on, and with Astor dutifully circling the position the killer had once filled, there was a strong chance that he was rethinking his plan. There was also the matter of the lightning-slinger who had become oddly dormant since they had all parked on the roof.

The flames had begun spreading to the fresh corpses, and the stench that filled the air became truly rancid. The rookies were all floored at the same time, covering their mouths and noses and gagging roughly. Even Akemi's concentration had been jarred by the rush of unpleasant odors, but she took it upon herself to be the one to continue observing. Astor had been circling for a long time, but he hadn't come up with anything new or reassuring. Either the enemy had gone into retreat, or they were simply waiting for the right moment. It was coming soon, if so; the roof was creaking and groaning with its intention to collapse. Akemi turned to clap her hands, hoping that the familiar sound of her training call would bring her students back from the brink of insanity. "Alright, listen up! This roof is going down, and we're going down with it. We'll cut a path through the wood and rubble. Hopefully, we'll stay out of sight long enough to reach the outskirts and gain an advantage among the trees." She clapped again, doubling her efforts. "Brace yourselves!"

Akemi stomped on the roof, forcing her strength into the structure and feeling the satisfaction of breaking planks beneath her weighted boot. She took the shingles down on her own, counting on the controlled demolition to drop the foursome into a room that hadn't yet been engulfed by fire. Her gamble paid off well, as the yelps of Mako and Fiona were cut short by an impact with a second-story room floor. Rika landed steadily. The floor felt sturdy and cool beneath Akemi's foot, but there was no time to waste. "Up, up, up!" Akemi encouraged, putting her hand around Fiona's and lifting her up. Rika helped Mako in a similar fashion, mirroring her respected teacher. Akemi was certainly pleased to have some of the weight lifted from her shoulders, even if it only applied to the small things. The heavy lifting was still hers to bear.

"We're going this way!" Akemi announced, knowing that every second spent standing in one place was a second during which their enemies would close in on their known location. "Through the window!" She grabbed Mako's wrist, and Rika again followed suit by grabbing Fiona's and giving a nod. Akemi turned her shoulder forward and charged through the solid glass window at the end of the room, breaking through with a grunt and shielding her eyes from the shards with her free arm. Rika followed behind, and while her jump was not as fast as Akemi's, they both cleared the gap and landed within the next building. The atmosphere was completely arid; the roaring inferno had gobbled up every drop of moisture and sent it high into the sky. Akemi enjoyed the dryness, but the heat was starting to bother her as she exerted herself. She was leading the way through the structures, and ultimately she emerged from the block of homes with Fiona in tow and Rika close behind with Mako.

As Akemi landed, she heard a faint creak and turned to shove Fiona away from her. Before Fiona could protest the push, Akemi was raising her knife to block a direct assault from a masked man wielding a sword. His blade was charged furiously with lightning, and he was struggling mightily against Akemi's blocking dagger. Though his face was covered by a white shell, Akemi could tell that he was confused as to why his chakra was incapable of slicing through the girl's plain-looking weapon.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Akemi teased confidently, straining a bit against her heavy breath. "You _really_ want it to just break in half, right?" The searing heat around her was forcing her to sweat, but her muscles were calm and in control. Her opponent's physical strength was significantly beneath hers—a classic sign of relying just a bit too much on the easy-cut nature of lightning. Kaine Hamasaki didn't have that problem, but he knew that numerous other lightning-types did—that was why he made Akemi's dagger; it was especially for her. The metal was something fairly unique: it was infused with a lasting charge of Kaine's own lightning chakra. The surge of power was baked into the very folds of the finely honed material. Though the amount of electricity was not enough to give Akemi's blade the raw slicing power that came with a full charge, it _was_ enough to counteract that same force from an opponent...provided that Akemi fed some of her own chakra into its hilt to call out the latent energies. She was an earth type; because of that, lightning was her biggest natural weakness. Kaine didn't want her to have any weaknesses.

Akemi's opponent said nothing in response, and it irked her. Realizing that she wasn't going to get any more enjoyment out of that one, she pushed hard against the sparking blade and then overwhelmed its wielder with a burst of strength. While the silent man's arms were thrown up by the momentum, Akemi went right for the kill—her knife's blade was jabbed beneath his chin and straight through his mouth, carving a path until it peeked out through the top of his skull. He immediately went limp, and Akemi yanked her blade out of his head with a hum as he crumpled down to the dirt. She turned to look at Rika, Mako and Fiona to see that they were still in decent shape. She had expected them to be appalled by the brutal kill, but then she somberly remembered that they had just witnessed an entire village killed by the dead man and his allies. They were holding up remarkably well, considering.

"Let's move on, yeah?" Akemi asked, nodding her head to her left. They were within a single jump's distance of the trees, but when she turned to face the call of freedom, she was greeted by one more opponent. She guessed to herself that it was the one who had been throwing shuriken earlier in the battle, but she didn't want to assume that the threat was no longer lurking in the trees. The strong flames had frightened Astor away, leaving Akemi blind to what might have been happening on the outskirts. The ominous figure that revealed itself was all that stood between the four-person team and a clean escape. They had no supplies to show for their efforts, but they had thus far held onto their lives. Under such conditions, that was something of a miracle.

The latest challenger to emerge was noticeably different. The one lying dead at Akemi's feet was wearing the dark black robe and a white mask. He seemed typical of a Leaf Anbu operative. Akemi hadn't thought twice when she looked at that one, but the one who was staring at her in silence through their own mask was simply bizarre. The final obstacle's facade was bulkier than the usual fare; it flared out to the left and right, eclipsing the border of the person's hood. It had the shape of a king cobra's head, complete with finely detailed ridges and a forked tongue slipping out from the stylized mouth. The whole mask was colored like blood; it was red and roughly textured, seeming a little bit too real. Also, unlike the others, this one spoke plainly and freely.

"You are one of the Truth," the figure said; the voice was male. He lifted his arm, a curved finger pointing upward to indicate Akemi's proudly-displayed headband.

"I am...and I take it that you're from the Leaf, given how quickly you slaughtered all those people." Akemi choked back some of her enthusiasm. She was shaken by the voice that spoke to her. It was hissy like a snake and cold like the reptile's blood. Everything about him seemed reminiscent of what she had been told about the disgraced sannin called Orochimaru. If it were him, she had no chance of victory—the best she could hope for was to stall long enough for the others to escape. Unfortunately, the three behind her were completely frozen with fear. Not even Rika could put on a brave face at that point.

"I am an agent of the Leaf's best interests, my dear," came the cool reply. He was gesturing whimsically, his hands rising up as if conducting a symphony. The flames climbed higher into the sky. The rage that ate the town seemed to respond physically to the man's gestures. It became apparent that the unusually rapid spread of the all-consuming fire had something to do with the snake-person. "My name is Mamban," he said.

"Mamban?" Akemi repeated. It was an alias, then. "I would have thought Orochimaru," she said, trying to get back into rhythm.

"Oh my, no. My reputation is not as illustrious as that. I only do what I'm told," Mamban replied, still making flamboyant gestures with his covered hands, stepping into a carefree twirl on his heel. He wore the standard black robe and gloves. The only thing that set him significantly apart from Akemi's previous opponents was the atypical model of his mask.

"And who told you to kill a group of frightened civilians, I wonder?" Akemi answered back. Her knife was still drawn, and she wiped the blood and bone fragments away by rubbing it length-wise against her pants. The serrated edge sparkled with flame light.

"In the end, it doesn't matter whose orders I'm following, little girl. I am much more interested in _your_ master," Mamban answered. "I have heard that he now calls himself Minoru...Do you happen know why he abandoned his former name?"

Akemi paused. "Minoru is just Minoru. He has no former name," she said, reciting something that the man in question had once told her. Much of her life had gone by since that day, but she remembered it clearly. The first time she met Minoru, they were both more like children. He had always been blind, and he had always possessed his unique ability to see through people. The thought that he had previously been somebody else had never even crossed Akemi's mind—not then, and not even now. "I don't know what Hamasaki told you, but it seems he's been feeding you lies."

"Kaine Hamasaki...A unique case, certainly." Mamban began to step toward Akemi, moving one foot at a time and pausing awkwardly between steps. "I had hoped to find him in charge of this foolish attack, but alas...I suppose the four of you will serve as satisfactory trophies instead." Mamban formed a seal that Akemi had never seen, and then leaned his head forward to spit something out through the dark opening of his mask's maw. It looked like water, but it had a dark, inky green hue. As it splashed to the ground, the air began to smell like vinegar and the grass beneath the acrid pool withered and dissolved. It continued to eat through the dirt below, forming a deepening hole a few inches wide, which Mamban stepped over and moved past. The putrid stink continued to rise from the small pit.

"Just try it," Akemi said, keeping her eyes on her enemy but also searching for her trio of responsibilities through her peripheral vision. They were clumped up behind her and to her left, which was good—she would be able to protect them more easily if they stayed in one spot.

Mamban made his move, and it was instant. Akemi had him in her sight, and then she lost him without blinking. He was extremely fast, or... "Hold your breath!" Akemi shouted, tucking her dagger under her arm to form a simple genjutsu release seal. She surged her chakra, seeking to disrupt whatever had gotten into her senses through the rancid air. She undid the deception just quickly enough to see Mamban rematerializing in front of her, as if coming into focus from behind a swampy haze. In his hand, he held a kunai which was an inch from Akemi's left eye and being thrust with purpose. She moved her head, narrowly holding onto her vision but catching the edge of the blade along her cheek. The cut was razor thin, but even that was too close for her liking. As Mamban's attack failed to deal significant damage, Akemi spun herself around, whipping her foot in an arc to deliver the back of her heel to the rear of Mamban's head.

He ducked the kick and twisted himself along the ground, sweeping Akemi's remaining foot out from under her with his ankle, robbing her of balance and orientation. The opening only lasted a moment, but Mamban took advantage of it to thrust his kunai a second time, catching Akemi in the side and drawing a rewarding splash of blood. Akemi winced from the sharp gash, but she could tell that it wasn't going to be fatal—not immediately. While her disorientation allowed for a free hit, she regained her awareness in time to block the second attempted stab to her gut, knocking it aside with her knife as she spun in the air. With the enemy kunai set away from its course, she aimed a kick for Mamban's mask, a kick which he blocked with a raised forearm. Akemi used that solid, defensive arm as leverage to shove her foot against, pushing herself back into a favorable position a few paces from her enemy and onto both of her own feet. She aimed her landing toward her students, knowing that their inexperience would get them killed if she let them out of her reach. To make sure that they were aware of their surroundings, she tapped each of them on the forehead with an outstretched hand, providing a dose of chakra to break the sensory genjutsu.

"He's strong," Akemi warned breathlessly. She had been using too much chakra throughout the night, and she could feel her eyes getting cloudy after releasing her team. The flames of the village were catching onto the trees that surrounded it. If her skirmish with Mamban endured for much longer, there would be no hope for an escape. "We'll need to work together and push an opening. Mako, get behind me. Fiona, step aside and ready some wire string. Rika, you're going to follow my lead...We're going to try to snare him."

Mamban was close, but he had paused. His head tilted horizontally, wagging his mask side to side. His whole body was swaying. The smell of vinegar had dissipated from the air, and the genjutsu's potency had seemingly come to an end, but he didn't try it again. "You aren't bad, little missy," he said breezily. The chaotic burn that served as their audience seemed to cheer as wooden planks collapsed and walls fell over uselessly with crashing regularity. "That genjutsu is usually enough to end my battles..." He laughed like a child.

"Might've been good enough to get Kaine, but I'm not as dumb as he is," Akemi said back, loudly enough to catch her opponent's ear. Mamban hadn't heard the plan that she shared with her students—rather, Akemi sincerely hoped that he hadn't. With a nod to Rika, Akemi took the front and rushed in an outside arc, moving at about half speed toward their foe. She was demanding Mamban's attention, brandishing her knife threateningly and forming a rapid assortment of signs. As she got close, she checked Rika's position. Everything was set. Time to take a risk.

Akemi threw a naked punch toward Mamban's mask, expecting it to be dodged—it was, and the fluid movements of her adversary responded with a vault, his hand grabbing her by the hair as he flipped over her head. His grip was solid and Akemi clenched her jaw to avoid screaming as her scalp was yanked on. She couldn't frighten her team before it was time. She had to stay composed. It burned as Mamban tugged her by the hair and flung her into the dirt, flat on her back. Mamban was upon her with a kunai in hand, straddling over her waist and thrusting the blade toward her throat. "_Now_!" Akemi barked, smacking her hand onto the ground beside her and sending dual pillars of earth up from either side of her. She caught Mamban by the knees, launching him from his position on top of her and into the air. As long as he couldn't fly somehow, he was briefly exposed and their plan could take shape.

At Akemi's signal, Rika threw her kunai. It was tied to a considerable length of wire string, as prepared by Fiona. Mako had the length's other end wrapped around his wrist and tightly held in both hands. As Mamban tumbled through the air, trying to wrench himself back into control by pure willpower, Rika's throw arched over him. When it reached the ground on the other side, Akemi was quick to nab the handle, taking it and its cargo along with her. She ran in the opposite direction to loop under her opponent with the durable wire, snagging him in the air and forcing the wire to tighten around his waist, fighting against his momentum. Mamban made a satisfying gag as he felt the air forced out of him, then realized in a blur that the four ninja had managed to reinforcing his bindings, running laps around his tumbling self. By the time he reached the ground, he was flat on his back and tied up from head to toe by a long wire.

Akemi breathed a victorious sigh, moving to sweep sweat from her brow and finding very little to wipe—the dry heat had wicked away most of the buildup, though she felt like she should have been drenched. She looked to Fiona, Mako and Rika, giving a wink and a thumbs up. "That's my team!" she exclaimed, genuinely excited to see the plan come together.

"Impressive, children," Mamban said from his position on the ground. He was thoroughly hog-tied and couldn't even bring his hands together to make seals. He was laughing, filling the air with his unsettling voice. "The Truth really is worth having, then." Without handsigns, he took a deep breath and sprayed more of the strange green substance into the air. It hung high above, coalescing with some of the heavy smoke that rose out of the village's flames. It bubbled and thrashed in the air until suddenly exploding. Tiny droplets of the thick green substance began to fall like rain, dousing the field that hosted the fight.

The first drops landed on Mamban's bindings, corroding the wire in a moment but leaving his mask and clothing entirely unharmed. A smoke lime-green residue wafted into the air as the wire became nothingness. Akemi narrowed her eyes. "Without seals...?" The heavy rainfall of acid reached her before it reached the rest of her team, and while she danced around many of the earliest bits, one droplet splashed onto her bare forearm. The contact initially felt like a pinching bug bite, but it quickly evolved into pure agony as it burrowed into her flesh, eating away at her skin and trying to tunnel further beneath. Akemi grabbed her knife and carved out the section of flesh that had been hit; it was small, so she barely removed more than a chunk, and it dissolved before it reached the ground. The emergency surgery hurt like hell, but its aftermath would heal quickly since she acted fast—the problem was that dozens, perhaps hundreds more droplets were coming for her and her students. That, and Mamban was freed while seeming unhindered by his own technique.

The soil was eaten by the incinerating rain as well, carving a crater around Mamban, which he rose to stand at the center of. Akemi was making a run for her students when a building near their location exploded violently from within. The unlucky timing of the eruption sent out a massive wave of flames and debris. Fiona, Mako and Rika were separated from one another by the disruptive blast, spread out over several meters and incapacitated on the ground. Akemi was moving with as much speed as she could muster, but she could feel the acidic rain coming closer and closer. None of her students had recovered from the spontaneous explosion quickly enough to escape on their own, and Akemi didn't have the chakra to shield them all. She made a quick judgment call, finding Rika amidst the scattered ruins and kneeling beside her. Akemi formed the seals as quickly as she could, but even then she barely managed to clap the ground fast enough to raise a defense in time. She felt the plink of a single droplet against the back of her boot, and without thinking she kicked it off her foot and cursed. The rubbery material was degraded into a bubbling soup of black fluid almost as soon as she freed herself from it. The rain was surely deadly, and even the wall that protected her and Rika was not going to last.

Using the very deepest reserves of her chakra, Akemi finally made good on her earlier plan. Time was short—her wall was already being devoured. Small dots of light peeked through as holes were opened in the barricade. Akemi heard screams and gasps of pure desperation coming from Fiona and Mako, out of sight but not out of mind. They were too far away to reach...and they had already been hit. Akemi knew what that meant. With one hand pressing hard to the soil and the other tucking Rika's head against her chest, Akemi dove into the earth in a last-ditch escape attempt. Rika was trying to protest, but she was muffled by Akemi's bosom, punching her sensei's ribs in an attempt to force her to turn back and fetch the doomed classmates. As Akemi burrowed deep, deeper, and then even deeper, she could still hear the pleading cries of her two abandoned students until they suddenly and tellingly went silent. Luck was on their team's side—two of them had survived the impossible. The other two had not been ready to handle the world that Akemi had always known.

Akemi continued her technique until she had exhausted her final drop of spare chakra. Gambling on a good emergence, she rose up and out of the earth with a massive groan. Rika was pulled out first, and then Akemi ran out of chakra when only half of her own body was topside. The other half of her was suddenly caught in the ground as her jutsu wore off, and she could no longer influence the dirt that surrounded her. She examined her surroundings, first and foremost. There was no sign of Mamban, or even of the burning village. She had no idea how far she had gone—she only knew that she couldn't afford to stay put for very long. She started to drag herself out of the ground the old fashioned way, wriggling herself from side to side in order to loosen the grip it had upon her, but Rika caught her breath and rushed over to kick Akemi right across the face. The impact snapped the trapped woman's head from one side to the other and nearly knocked her unconscious.

"_You left them behind!_" Rika screeched, her eyes wet and glistening as she pointed an accusing finger toward Akemi. "But I'm going back for them!" She turned to leave, but Akemi caught her around the ankle. "_Let me go_! I won't leave them!" Rika struggled, but even though she was exhausted, Akemi was too strong for her to escape. Rika used her free foot to kick at her sensei's wrist, writhing and crying as she tried to break free. "Stop it!"

Akemi summoned up a frustrated growl from her place, half-buried in the earth. She pulled Rika's foot to yank her onto the ground in front of her, sliding the novice along the dirt and pinning her beneath two strong hands. Rika was laid flat on her back and imprisoned at the shoulders, staring up at Akemi's pained face with wide eyes as she was loomed over. Akemi leaned her own head down, pressing her forehead protector against Rika's smooth brow; their faces were less than an inch apart. Their eyes were linked, and neither of them were blinking when Akemi began to speak.

"This is the world we live in, Rika," Akemi began, panting. "It's not nice, it's not easy; it's not just our nightmare—its our _only_ reality." She shook Rika's shoulders firmly, digging her short fingernails into the fabric of the other girl's dress and bruising the flesh beneath. "We don't get to _enjoy _the people we love...we _lose_ them—_Violently_. Fiona and Mako were weak...when you're weak, you die. _That_ is what it means to be a shinobi." Akemi's voice was raspy and on the verge of breaking down. She trembled with sorrow as her light green eyes pierced Rika's with an intense aura of regret. "_You're_ alive...because _I_ decided that you were worth saving," Akemi confessed, and she didn't let Rika go. She stared for a long time, trading breath with her sole surviving teammate as they panted against one another. The ordeal weighed heavily upon them both.

"Worth saving...?" was all Rika could say to answer the emotional outburst. Her own tears had stopped abruptly, replaced by a seizing fear. Lying there beneath Akemi was the most frightening thing she had ever experienced. She could see something broken deep within her sensei's stare—something that could probably never be repaired.

Akemi searched for the right words—the right way to answer that breathless question. Why was Rika Mori worth saving? "You'll be useful someday," she settled on. She caught her breath, and for a long time, neither of the women moved. Eventually, Akemi loosened her grasp on Rika's shoulders, and the latter winced as she crawled away from the angered and then deflated ninja. Akemi tried to free herself again, but the throbbing pain of the slash across her side was making it too hard. Akemi offered a needy hand toward Rika, speaking with a dead expression. "Help me out of here...we need to get moving." Rika complied, grabbing her master around the wrist and giving a mighty pull, freeing her from the grip of the merciless earth. It was a long way home, and it was going to be a bitter journey—there was no prize. The raid had failed in the most devastating way imaginable.

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As Akemi retold the story to Kaine, she had conveniently omitted the exchange she had with Rika. It wasn't important to what Kaine wanted to know, after all. Even so, she could see his face darkening with each new detail, and by the time she had finished her story with the account of her escape, he was looking confused.

"You weren't sent to burn the village down? Based on the way Minoru was acting, he seemed to have expected things to go wrong...and he didn't even want you to leave a message, either?" Kaine was sitting upright with his hands resting on his knees, cross-legged. His bed looked comfortable, despite how Kaine's attitude always made it seem like he was perpetually cranky from a lack of sleep. "Kakashi told me about the village, but he also said that there was a message left behind...Something about the final autumn. And that the truth would prevail over the leaves? It actually sounded a lot like what Minoru was telling me when I spoke to him." Though it may have seemed ironic to others, the man named Minoru was not the person Kaine trusted the most.

Akemi frowned, poking her cheek with her tongue in thought. "No, I would have remembered leaving a message...Minoru never said anything about that. Our mission was supposed to be simple; a little trial by experience—maybe sneaking around a guard or two. Mako and Fiona weren't supposed to die, they were just supposed to get a little bit of a kick-start in their development. Nothing like field experience, right?"

"When I asked where they were, you seemed so cold about it...don't you feel for them at all?" Kaine wondered, staring deeply toward his closest and most trusted family member. Though she regretted how it must have looked, Akemi wasn't ready to tell him about how painful the failure really was.

"I'm a ninja," she said to him. "I can't afford to feel."

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**That's all for today's update. Thanks for reading, and feel free to let me know what you think by leaving a review. **


	12. Three Hundred Stones

**A bit short this time.**

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"Maybe not when you're out _there_," Kaine said back to Akemi, giving her a stern hmph and refusing to take her cryptic declaration as an answer. "But you're not out there—you're in here, with me." He took a deep breath and a long pause. "...And when I'm in here, I feel something for them. I feel like I want them back—I wish for them to be alive, even though I _know_ they're gone, and it makes me so angry..." He flexed his hands into fists, fingers writhing out of control.

Akemi stared for a moment, looking perplexed. That was an unusual admission from the arrogant jerk she knew and loved. He looked sad and vulnerable, and it didn't make sense to her. He had barely known those two; in essence, he had even been the one to abandon them to their fates. She put on a bratty smirk. "But aren't you _always_ angry, Hamasaki?" she asked, her head canted gently to the side, letting her dusty blonde hair fall over her shoulder.

Kaine rolled his eyes, instantly regretting his admission, but realizing that it was too late to swallow it back down. He nodded, acknowledging his hot temper, but then he clarified it. "It's different now, though. This time, it isn't something I can fix by hitting it in the face. It hurts when I remember their faces." He was looking down to his lap, half-covered by a dark brown sheet that had a texture like burlap.

Akemi pursed her lips, her breath slowing down as she studied Kaine. He seemed so bizarrely out of place, to her. He looked like he had come back to find a home that was never his to begin with. "We're going to avenge them, Hamasaki. We _need_ to do it." Akemi stated it firmly; it wasn't an invitation, but an already-present obligation. As she spoke, Kaine inflated his chest a bit. His arms tensed, and he felt some of Akemi's resolve creeping into him. She continued. "They would have killed Rika, too, if I had let them. Me, you, Minoru...all of us will die if they get their way. The Land of Fire is blind to the evil of the Leaf, and it's our job as the Truth Village to bring their sins to the light. It's what we were made for, remember?" Akemi scooted her chair closer to Kaine's bedside, dragging the sanded legs of her seat across the rough, untreated bark of the floor. It made a grating, grinding sound, but she didn't mind and neither did Kaine.

"That ninja, Mamban...the one you faced. He said that Minoru used to go by a different name, right?" Kaine had absorbed all the things Akemi said, and he looked to a fixed point on his wall where a nail poked out. He would need to hammer it down later on. "He didn't happen say what that name used to be, did he?"

Akemi's expression smoldered; she was getting a bad vibe from Kaine. "You don't actually think he was telling the truth, do you?"

"I don't know what to think anymore, Akemi...I left two weeks ago to check my messages, and I came back to a half-starved village and two dead recruits." Kaine abruptly smacked his palm to his forehead, then dug his fingers deep into the messy oil of his hair, giving it a frustrated tug. The day had been a trying one. "That man named Kakashi Hatake is a lot of things, but...I don't think he's our enemy—and if he is, he's not the same as Mamban."

"They're both part of the Leaf; what makes them different?" Akemi leaned down, her elbows on her knees and her arms crossed in her lap.

"Mamban would have killed you if you hadn't managed to escape from him—like how he killed Mako and Fiona." Kaine flexed his jaw open, making his cheeks look hollow as he remembered a swift kick to the chin. "On the other hand, Kakashi could have killed _me_ a dozen times—no, even more than that. I fought him with the intention of killing him, but he shrugged me off and let me go anyway..."

Akemi's eyes went a little wider. She was quick to rationalize. "Maybe he felt bad about fighting an injured opponent?"

Kaine smirked, letting off a huff of laughter. "I wasn't injured, then. I'm in top shape, but I still couldn't lay a damned finger on him."

"He's got the Sharingan, though. You can't blame yourself for being outdone by an eye like that," Akemi said, trying to reassure her broken comrade.

Kaine laughed openly, tucking his hands behind his head and laying flat on his thin mattress. He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye, looking hysterical as he declared his own incompetence. "He didn't even have it open, Akemi. The man's a complete monster; he's in an entirely different league from the rest of us...And he's even known as friend-killer Kakashi, on top of that." Kaine's laughter subsided, and his face turned to stone as he looked to Akemi. "So why didn't he just kill me?"

"He's that strong...?" Akemi mused, bringing two fingers up to rub the side of her cheek in contemplation. "If he really did let you go, are you sure he didn't follow you?"

Kaine paused, his breathing ceasing for a long second. "Yes, and no...He didn't follow me, but I did lead him here without realizing it."

Akemi clenched her fist, but rather than knock the man's lights out, she pounded it against her kneecap. "Damn it, Hamasaki...How could you not realize it?"

"How much do you know about Wood Release, Akemi?" Kaine quizzed, smirking in remembrance of Tenzo. He could count himself among the lucky few who had seen the treasured kekkei genkai in person, and despite all of the negativity that came from the experience, it was still something he felt middling pride in.

"Not much—isn't that Hashirama Senju's legendary style?" Akemi asked. "Why's that important?"

"Kakashi's friend, Tenzo...He's got that gift. I saw it with my own eyes; he bound me up in wooden shackles that were impossible to break. Somehow, probably through the food they were giving me, he implanted me with...seeds." Kaine rolled his tongue in his mouth, then spit on the floor, as if to get rid of a returning aftertaste. "Minoru spotted them inside me and got rid of them, but...not until I was already here. Kakashi, though...he didn't need to track me down and confront me. I was already tagged when he told me all of the things he did...I think he really means well." Kaine took another breath to steady himself. It was time for the confession. "But, even before I brought Kakashi and Tenzo here, something else happened to jeopardize us."

"Something else? What kind of something else, Hamasaki?" Akemi had been listening closely, and her expression was too difficult to read. She didn't seem angry, or upset, but she didn't seem pleased either. Her tone was flat and curious.

"A genjutsu. Minoru told me that it had been placed on me during my last visit to the Leaf, but I never noticed it." Kaine winced by instinct, expecting an explosion of fury from the woman only inches from his bed, but it never came. Akemi leaned back in her chair and ran her hands from her knees to the tops of her thighs, collecting herself. The silence urged Kaine to keep talking. "So, they've known we're here for a few months, already. They manipulated me into sending some kind of report. I don't know what it said, but these assassins are here because of it."

Akemi exhaled, closing her eyes and keeping her mouth shut tight. After she took two more long, deliberate breaths, she spoke in a calm whisper. "You're lucky to be alive," she acknowledged. "If it had been Mamban who found you, I doubt you would have made it back at all. He didn't seem to care about life...I know you didn't see all those people dying back there, but...He _chose_ to kill the civilians instead of coming for me. I've never seen anything so callous."

"Maybe we're both lucky, then," Kaine said in a whisper that matched hers.

"Don't count on it," Akemi said back with a half-sincere grin. "I never got captured. You're the idiot who had to rely on the mercy of somebody else."

Kaine chuckled, turning his head to look at his ceiling. "Yeah, maybe you're right. Really, I'm a pretty lucky guy when I'm not dooming everybody around me to enslavement and death."

Akemi thumped Kaine on the forehead with a flick of her middle finger. "We're not dead yet, Hamasaki. You and me, we can take all comers, right?"

"Right," Kaine answered. He didn't retaliate against the high-speed poke to his forehead. If he had tried, she probably would have just made some quip about him losing his headband. He wasn't going to walk into that one. "I told Minoru I was going to kill the invaders, but also that I wasn't going to help him attack—or steal from—any other villages. I'm telling you the same thing, so you aren't surprised when I decline the inevitable order."

Akemi recoiled slowly, as if she was trying to back herself away from the cub of a mother bear. Her brows furrowed and the bottom of her lip undulated slightly. She came to rest with her back pressed tensely to the chair. "When I ran away from the fight, carrying Rika, I only had one thought in my head: 'If Hamasaki were here, that snake-headed bastard would've been ripped apart.' I blamed the Leaf for it—I thought that you would have come with us and helped us out, no matter what, and it was them who kept you from doing it. What happened to you out there? Why am I suddenly so wrong?"

Kaine sighed, exasperated. "It's tough to explain. Have you ever thought that maybe we have the wrong idea of things, Akemi? That maybe we aren't supposed to be Minoru's soldiers for our whole lives?"

"We're not just his soldiers, Hamasaki. We're his villagers, and he thinks of us as family." Akemi tried to correct Kaine's misguided notion.

"What's the difference? Mako and Fiona weren't soldiers, either—not even close. They're dead all the same on orders from Minoru. Earlier, he told me something..." Kaine debated with himself in lingering silence, still on the same breath. Akemi didn't seem to know about their leader's real intentions. Kaine decided that he should tell her the truth: "I think he expected them to die...like he actually _wanted_ them to. He told me that he sent them on the mission to give our people something to rally behind...some kind of martyr. He tossed you out with Rika, Mako, and Fiona to test the enemy's strength, and give our people the motivation of revenge when things went wrong."

"Why would he want that, though? He always used to tell me that revenge was poisonous..." Akemi thought back to the old days, again. There was a time before the village existed, and she had been there for it. She was once a little girl with nothing left, aside from a mangled teddy bear and a ragged poncho wrapped around her shoulders, and then Minoru gave her a purpose.

"I think it _is_ poisonous, but sometimes it's also necessary...Like in Mamban's case. We're going to kill him, just the two of us—and it will be revenge, pure and simple...But that's not what Minoru is advocating; not exactly. He wants us to be vengeful toward the entire Leaf Village, along with all its past and future people." Kaine worked it out vocally, talking to himself as much as he was to Akemi.

"The Leaf did something terrible to him, though," Akemi reminded.

"What was it, Akemi? Where did his grudge come from?" Kaine replied. Akemi had known Minoru for a while longer than he had. Perhaps she knew something that he didn't. "I hear him speak in broad strokes about their evils, of the unnamed sins they've committed...but never specifics. Kakashi asked me something, Akemi—'Who do you think Minoru is?' I told him what I always thought was true...That Minoru's the truth, my friend, and my leader."

"That's who he is to _all_ of us. Do you really doubt him after all this time?" Akemi was apprehensive. She didn't like where the discussion was going.

"I...I do, Akemi. I doubt Minoru very much." Kaine's words carried enormous weight, and he had to struggle to push them out. "You were there when he first created this village, right?"

"Yeah, he and I were the only two people with Truth headbands for a while..." Akemi tipped her thumb toward her forehead.

"Until I came along?" Kaine winked, self-satisfied.

"Well, you know...there were others. In the early days, nobody lasted very long...which reminds me, Hamasaki." Akemi held up her pointer finger, interrupting the conversation. "We need to add their names."

Kaine slanted his brow. "You haven't done it yet?"

"I was waiting for you; they were supposed to be yours," she answered simply.

"Then we should get it over with. They've waited long enough." Kaine groaned as he stood up from his bed and picked up a shirt to pull over his head. Akemi stood beside him, and they both left his house without a word, closing the door behind them. They followed a long and winding path through the woods; they passed the training field and descended a sloped hill beyond it to reach a rocky grove.

They looked over the grove in silence, and Akemi crouched down. "So that they'll always be remembered," Akemi said as she formed seals and touched the ground lightly. The soil churned as two rocks were pulled up from their resting place beneath the surface, and she plucked them both from the earth to position them upright on the grass.

"Always remembered," Kaine said with confirmation. He knelt down and extended a pointer finger, giving his digit a simple charge of lightning. Using the crackling heat, he carved letters into each of the rocks. One was given the name _Mako Kita_, and the other was labeled _Fiona Uno_. Akemi leaned down beside Kaine to take hold of Mako's rock, nudging it along the ground until the two stones were touching. The two were inseparable during life, so she found it fitting to ensure they stayed in contact forever.

Akemi hummed, standing up to admire their handiwork. Kaine stood beside her, and perched his hands on his waist. As the reality set in, Akemi took a slow breath that turned shaky, and then it became sniffling. Kaine was suddenly embrace from the side, and Akemi's smooth arms wrapped around his waist and chest; she pressed herself tightly against him, resting her cheek on his shoulder. She spoke quietly, respecting the sanctity of where they stood. "Promise you won't leave me again, Hamasaki," she said as a solitary tear dripped down her cheek.

Kaine tensed up when the warmth of his 'sister' molded around him, but he relaxed shortly after. His arm came up to drape around her shoulders, tucking her beneath his strength and pulling her close. His hand brushed through a few loose strands of her hair. "If I go anywhere, I'm taking you with me," he said, assuring her. "I won't leave you to this fate." He looked at her for a moment, and then he took in the sight of Mako and Fiona's fresh gravestones. He cast his gaze higher, and further back. There were more stones in the small grove, each with the name of an individual who would never reach the truth that Minoru promised.

The headstones numbered over three hundred.

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**Review, favorite, follow—anything you like. As always, I appreciate the support.**


	13. A Very Heavy Wrench

**I'm having so much fun with this story—thank you all again for your amazing support.**

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The last thing Tenzo saw from Kaine's point of view was the hazy, incomplete image of Minoru, and then the bottom of his sandal. Tenzo opened his eyes and undid the hand seal that allowed him to eavesdrop through his planted seeds, humming as if he were impressed. "That didn't take long," Tenzo admitted, seated at a table in Makoto and Rika's family tavern. Kakashi was in a chair beside him, and both of them had their backs toward a wall. Kakashi was combing through all of the provided files once again, looking for something he might have missed on any of the presumed-dead faces.

"Found us out already, then?" Kakashi noted idly, closing a folder and moving to the next. Makoto was there in the room, but she wasn't seated with them—she was busy serving other tables. The inn actually had business that day, perhaps because of the invigorating presence of Kakashi Hatake. He had managed to go unnoticed for a while, but word of his particular fame spread around over time, and all of the would-be ninjas and swooning fangirls eventually paid him a visit. He could feel them all gawking at him from various tables, some of them with noodles hanging from their mouths in suspense whenever he spoke. "I didn't figure our spying tactic would work for long; what did you see?"

Tenzo sighed, closing his eyes and setting his hands on his opposite forearms, crossing them stubbornly. "Not enough, but more than nothing. They've got a sizable army built up—Kaine passed through a training field, and it was loaded with students and teachers. I don't think this village is as new as we thought—I counted dozens of people in his line of sight alone, all of them receiving combat lessons." Tenzo cut his eyes toward Makoto, who was sprinting back and forth with trays and bowls and cups all teetering in her hands. For her sake, the wood-user hushed his voice and cupped his hand over his mouth, leaning over to his mentor. "She knew a couple named Mako and Fiona, right...? According to one of the Truth ninjas, they were lost on a mission. Kaine didn't take it well. On top of that, I got a glimpse of Minoru...He admitted responsibility for the village raid, but right after that, he saw through my seeds and disposed of them."

Kakashi shut his eyes and set down the file he had been looking at. The man in the current photo had dark hair, like all the rest. Kakashi was looking closely at the facial features, but Minoru's mask covered everything identifiable—trying to pick out a profile was a lost cause. He would need to see underneath the mask to know for sure. Upon hearing the news about the unfortunate pair of former villagers, he leaned back in his seat and ran a hand over his masked chin. "It's a regretful loss, but it sounds like Kaine might be seeing through the veil just a little bit. A man like him will have a powerful sense of loyalty, but it won't be unshakable. I only hope that he comes around before it's too late for him."

Tenzo blinked, scrunching his features and leaning his elbows on the table in front of himself. "Why do you think a guy like Kaine is going to 'come around' at all? He seemed pretty sure of Minoru's ambiguous philosophies when I had him in the hospital." He scooped up a spoon of stew, blowing it cool and swallowing it down. "He's more likely to rally against us and get revenge for his captivity."

"Perhaps," Kakashi acknowledged the possibility, but he wasn't certain of its truth. "Kaine Hamasaki doesn't know very much beyond war and desperation. I get the feeling that Minoru is the first person who ever offered him something meaningful in life—a real, lasting purpose. Kaine was proud of being Minoru's 'left hand,' but he doesn't really know any alternatives." Kakashi eyed Makoto as she rushed past him, carrying more food for more guests. "Rather, he didn't used to know any."

The young girl had been very apologetic about giving Kaine an escape window, and her parents piled on the remorse by offering their own heads in place of their daughter's. The situation was defused quickly when Kakashi revealed that he had expected them to let Kaine run loose from the beginning—he wasn't oblivious to the young girl's feelings for Kaine, and had counted on them to give the captive the courage to make a run for it. Tenzo and his colleague settled on receiving a free meal as compensation for what was essentially treason—a fine deal for both sides, really.

"I think you're giving him too much credit. He still blames us for trying to kill him in the first place, remember?" Tenzo chomped down another bite of stew, and then took a long sip of tea. His cup ran dry, but before he had even set it back down, a fresh helping had been delivered by Makoto and the empty one was spirited away from his hand. "Uh...thanks," he said, marveling at her efficiency. She had already moved on to the next.

"He seems loud and dumb, but he's still our best hope of finding out what's really happening in there, and coming to a peaceful resolution. Earlier, you said he walked through a barrier, right?" Kakashi dug his spoon into a bowl of stew, picking it up and bringing it close to his mask. He could feel all the eyes upon him again, intense and curious. He lowered his head with a sigh, dropping his spoon back into the broth. He could feel the collective sigh of snapped tension from the gawkers. "Right now, I think we have two options—either we try to find a way through the barrier, or we wait for Kaine to come out of it. What do you think, Tenzo?"

Tenzo took a moment to mull it over. "In either case, I think we should make our way out to this 'Truth Village' and get a better look. I know exactly where we'll find the barrier...If we get lucky, maybe we'll be able to sneak in as somebody else leaves. The village itself is bordered by water on three sides, but the barrier covers it on all four. Kaine performed some kind of seal on the ground when he made his way in, and the village opened up for him. It must be some kind of password, like a specific key or a secret handshake."

Kakashi returned his focus to the files strewn about his table. One face had caught his attention that day; a young man with an angular jaw and a hard look in his eyes. Sava Rashio, his name was—if he was going by facial features alone, Kakashi would figure Sava was the closest match to Minoru. His file was unremarkable, with mediocre scores and pitiful mission completion. He must have been killed—or possibly faked his death—before reaching his full potential. "This secret handshake of theirs: do you think you could replicate it?" Kakashi asked Tenzo, glancing over his way.

"Maybe, but I wouldn't bet my life on it. I don't have a Sharingan like you do." Tenzo answered.

"We're going to have to bet our lives sooner or later. Did you overhear anything about the assassins roaming around the trees?" Again, Kakashi started to raise a spoon to his mouth, then gave up and dropped it when he felt the weight of stares.

"Nothing concrete. Kaine wasn't stopped on his way back, and the seeds were pulled out before he and Minoru talked about anything aside from the two of us. Although..." Tenzo trailed off, pointing his spoon forward, as if singling out a thought that drifted visibly through the air. "Minoru said something right before he stepped on them. He said 'again.' Apparently, we aren't the first enemies that Kaine has brought home with him. Maybe our mystery men are a side effect of his latest visit to the Leaf."

"I'll send Pakkun to Tsunade. I need to ask about exactly who recommended Kaine for the investigation mission, but I think the odds are good that we both know who's really behind this clandestine Anbu presence. Agreed?" Kakashi asked, keeping his voice low. The average civilian had no idea what they were discussing, but among a crowd the size of which was gathered that afternoon, it would have been easy for a shinobi to hide in plain sight.

Tenzo nodded, the implications bringing up brief sequence of memories that were unpleasant for him. "Agreed. The only question we need to ask is how we're going to prove it. He doesn't exactly leave a paper trail, does he?"

"We'll figure out the details later. The important thing is that we keep our eyes open; we're making our way to the Truth Village tonight. Assuming we make it there unopposed, we'll stake out the barrier and see who comes and goes. With luck, we'll find a chance to slip through it without being noticed. Ideally, I need to have another personal talk with Minoru, but we can't expect him to come to us until he's got a full army at his back." Kakashi had finally had enough, moving to stand up with his bowl of stew in one hand. He walked away from the table he shared with Tenzo, climbing the nearby stairs until he reached the top, and then pulled his mask down while he was out of sight. He shoveled the stew down his mouth in a few rapid bites. He didn't generally mind showing his face, but at the same time he didn't like being stared at while he ate.

Tenzo rolled his eyes at his superior's peculiar habit, but he didn't worry about it. He locked his hands behind his head and leaned backward in the chair, looking to the woodwork of the ceiling. It wasn't perfect—he could have summoned up a nicer building with a clap of his hands—but it was obviously hand-made by somebody who took pride in their product. He had to admire the spirit of a person who built their own livelihood from the ground up, and then kept it going. Monolith Point represented that mindset well—every structure had a personality. One could tell a lot about a person in that town based on what their home and business looked like.

Kakashi came back down the stairs with an empty bowl, which he personally carried back into the kitchen area. He thanked Makoto and her parents with a polite bow and clapped hands, then he waved to Tenzo, beckoning him to finish up and come along. The junior of the two lamented his unfinished stew and tea, but the mission had to come first. He gathered up all the files that Kakashi had spread around, noticing the face of Sava Rashio, pondering over it for a moment. He shook his head, then folded it back into its sleeve, turning the chaos into a neat stack which he tucked into a pouch at his hip.

It was time to go.

* * *

Tenzo took the lead, since he knew the way. He followed Kaine's path, but with a few degrees of separation, just in case somebody else followed the same route. It would do them little good to capture another Truth ninja; they knew just about all they could learn from a basic grunt. The important information was in the head of the real source—Minoru was the one with the 'truth.' The trip took a couple of hours, and by the time they had found a tree situated close enough for a good vantage point, but far enough away for concealment, the sun was setting. Tenzo produced a disguised nest for them both using his wood style; he added a lumpy, hollow chamber into the side of a tree's trunk that had eye-holes poked through. A small hovel to camp in.

Their hideout wasn't large enough to move around in, but it kept them hidden from sight amongst the bare tree branches, and also protected them from the elements. From their perch, they could see where the barrier was supposed to exist—Kakashi confirmed its presence with his Sharingan, lifting his headband to observe the massive construct of chakra that enveloped the entire region. It seemed to stretch into the sky for miles before tapering off into a dome shape. It was an extremely powerful barrier, and to a passerby it would seem like nothing was there at all. The wilderness appeared completely barren and uninteresting from the outside looking in.

Kakashi and Tenzo could both feel the pressure of enemies surrounding them. The unnamed assassins swarmed the trees, but kept expertly out of sight, even against the two master shinobi. While the unusual adversaries seemed to pay the Jonin duo no mind, their numbers became thicker as the Leaf team got closer to the barrier—somewhere among them was a leader, and somewhere further away was the one who sent that leader his or her orders. It was a deep and convoluted mess, and Tenzo addressed his opinion quietly once they were securely locked up in their wooden pod. "If these people already knew where the village was, then why were we sent at all? You and I both saw Tsunade's face—she didn't seem thrilled about sending us on this mission. Pressure from the council?"

"Most likely. Otherwise, our Hokage is working to subvert us for some reason. I don't think Lady Tsunade is like that. She hasn't fully enforced her authority against the elders, yet—she'll have to do as they ask until she has something to use as leverage. So long as Naruto and Jiraiya are away from the Leaf, she can't even rely on them as trump cards." Kakashi dumped his thoughts out loud, having no better way to kill time as they camped in secrecy high above the forest floor.

"I worry about leaving her there by herself, what with most of the other Jonin being away on missions just like us. You don't think Danzo would be bold enough to move against her in broad daylight, do you?" Tenzo pondered, recalling the cruel streak of the man who had commissioned his existence. He had Danzo and Orochimaru to thank for his unique gift, but he had often wondered if—given the chance—he would trade his wood style in exchange for memories of a pleasant childhood. Usually, he decided that he was better off the way he actually was—Tenzo's inheritance from the First Hokage was one of the only things standing between the Leaf and another disaster involving the Nine Tails.

"Bold or not, he has means that we can't pin down. Officially, his Foundation was dissolved after the Uchiha massacre, and he was placed under house arrest. Unofficially, who's to say? He was never one to follow the rules." Kakashi thumbed the handle of a kunai that poked out from a slot on his hip. Whenever he thought of darkness, he thought of Sasuke. What could he have done differently? What would have convinced the young Uchiha to stay in the village?

He had a lot of time to think about it: the invisible barrier didn't seem to budge at all for an irritatingly long time, with the sun rising and setting a few times, revealing no new secrets. But then...

* * *

A couple of days had passed since Kaine's return, and he and Akemi had come to the conclusion that it was better to keep their classes merged together. Akemi argued that the group had grown used to one another, and that to rend the team apart would make them significantly less effective—Kaine actually agreed, which probably marked the first time in three years that they had come to terms on an issue without resorting to threats and teasing. He really had changed in those two weeks, Akemi realized.

On that day, they were teaching their first joint-operated class, with Akemi in the front and Kaine to her back and left. Really, the pupils had been hers up until that point, so the students were clearly more responsive to her methods. Kaine stood idly by with his arms crossed, watching them all go through drills and sparring. It was dull, but then it became intriguing—"Alright, everyone. It's time for elemental training," Akemi announced, clapping her hands as usual. The students, save for Tito and two others that Kaine didn't recognize, nodded and stood at attention. The three outcasts from the other day—the ones with no element—turned and separated from the group to sulk in a corner.

Kaine spoke up. "Hey, wait; what's happening there?" He pointed a wagging finger at the trio.

"Oh, right...them. They can't even put their chakra into the paper; there's not much point in teaching them anything else until they can do that." Akemi replied, shrugging. Silence took over their training ring; the chatter of learners was overtaken by the momentary discussion between their dual senseis.

"Mm, well, you've got these guys handled, right?" Kaine gestured to the six who were lined up in front of Akemi. "I'll handle those three until they're caught up. How's that?"

Akemi poked her tongue to the inside of her cheek, puffing her lips out thoughtfully. "Sure, why not? I wouldn't want you getting in my way, anyhow." She nodded her head, giving a gesture toward her set of lost causes in triplicate. "Good luck," she said with a smirk, winking as she turned back to Rika and the rest of the top class.

Kaine rolled his eyes, stepping over to Tito. The other two were huddled shamefully behind the larger one of their brethren. "Hey, what's the issue? The paper's not really difficult; just poke it with some chakra." Kaine reached into his pouch, producing a square and providing an example. It became soggy and fell apart, demonstrating his water affinity. The sound of Akemi's voice provided a backdrop, and Kaine twitched a little bit. "Anyway, try it again, and let me watch."

He passed out a slip of paper to each of them, which they all took with different levels of hesitation and timidity. Kaine felt like they were frightened of him. "Erm, look...about yesterday?" He assumed the rage that had been in his eyes upon his return had been the cause—it had bothered him, too, when he reached down and felt it. "I'm sorry. I don't take bad news very well, understand?" He darkened his gaze for dramatic effect, tilting his head forward and down. "And if you can't find your elements, that's bad news. Get me?" He winked, turning his dark look into a mocking smirk.

Tito answered. "It's not really that, it's just...Were you the one who killed Mako and Fiona?" He put on his bravest face, but it was transparent. The largely built, half-dumb looking male was trembling even as he flexed his muscles and tried to look intimidating.

Kaine blinked. "I...what? Why would you think that? I'm the one who brought them here—with you, too, remember?" He set his eyes directly on Tito, harshly. _Easy, Kaine; don't make him feel threatened._ "Didn't Akemi tell you guys what happened to them?"

Tito shook his head. "No, but she's always telling us about how dangerous you are. That you kill your own people for stepping out of line."

Kaine smacked his face, covering it up with his palm and dragging his nails down his skin. His flesh stretched a bit by the action, and he groaned, looking over his shoulder at Akemi. "Gah, she went overboard. No, I don't kill my own people for stepping out of line, only when..." He trailed off, realizing what he was about to say. He had killed his own people before. He flashed back to previous tests administered by Minoru.

He had survived his own defeat at Akemi's hands, but others had not been so lucky. Minoru was a masterful healer, but some blows were instantly fatal—many of Kaine's own tests ended with such blows. "Only when Minoru tests them...against me..." Kaine finished. The taste of the words made him want to retch. How had he not realized it before? Many of those three hundred stones were people whom he had been personally responsible for slaying. No...they were people whom Minoru had commanded him to slay, however indirectly it was so ordered. What kind of place _was _that village, and what was he still doing there? When he tried to come up with an answer, he suddenly felt hungry.

Kaine's answer—quite unbelievably—seemed to pacify Tito's concerns. "Oh. Well, if it's Master Minoru's will, then I suppose I shouldn't worry too much." Tito smiled genuinely. The look of it drove Kaine wild. That wasn't what should have happened.

"You mean that doesn't bother you?" Kaine asserted, taking a step forward and putting his hand on Tito's collar.

"Why would it bother me? Master Minoru keeps us safe, right? If he makes a choice, it's for the good of all of us." Tito didn't seem any different than usual, aside from the words he spoke. He was still cowering in front of Kaine, and the hand on his cloth collar had motivated him into silence. The words, though, seemed to be coming out of somebody else's mouth. Kaine felt doubt ringing in his ears as he dropped Tito's shirt, looking off into emptiness. He turned his head to look at Akemi; she was teaching the class as if nothing had changed.

Kaine stepped back, clearing his throat and trying to focus. He was still adjusting to his return; for all he knew, somebody had been trying to manipulate him while he slept in the hospital, and his thoughts were still cloudy. He had no idea what those seeds could have been doing to him. Things would settle in his mind over time, he figured. Shaking his head, he looked to Tito, then the woman and man he was with. The other two were fairly simple, the girl had brown hair and the guy had black. Wary, but not overly sheepish; they hardly merited Kaine's attention. "Sorry, Tito; you're right. We shouldn't question Minoru's decisions; we're unified beneath his will." Kaine recited a variation of their old slogan. "Now, for your chakra problem...the paper is easy. You just have to touch it with chakra. Are you telling me that you have no concept of using your chakra?"

Tito nodded. He had elected himself to be the leader of the misfits. "That's right; we don't get it. What _is_ chakra anyhow?"

Kaine sighed, shaking his head. "At this rate, it'll be faster for us to do an exercise that helps you find it. Put out your hand in a fist, like this," Kaine instructed, balling his fingers up and then holding his arm out straight in front of him. Tito did the same, and Kaine took a step forward, driving his knuckles firmly against Tito's. "Now...push against my arm, using your muscles. I'll push back." Tito pushed, trying to overcome Kaine's strength. Kaine was far stronger, and he held up against the large man's pressure. "Not bad, not bad. See what your muscles felt like just now? Your body knew what to do to push against me, right?"

Tito nodded, looking clueless. Kaine continued: "Now, we'll do the exact same thing with chakra. I'm going to push my chakra against yours within your network. You should feel it being disturbed, and then from there you should know where it is and what it feels like...to grasp it, close your eyes and let your instinct take over. Feel your chakra, then tell it to fight back against mine." Their fists were still pressed together, and Kaine sent a surge of chakra into Tito as if he were trying to disrupt a genjutsu.

At first, nothing seemed to happen, and Tito kept standing there with a vacantly open mouth. All at once, his eyes grew wide and he looked at Kaine with a puzzled and confused glare. "W-why did he do that?" Tito asked, disoriented.

Kaine could see that the exercise was failing, and so he took his hand down and humored his empty-headed student. "Why did who do what, Tito?"

"Why did Master Minoru test you against our own people...and why did he just let you kill them?" Tito struggled to form the thought, rubbing his forehead. "Isn't he supposed to protect us?"

Kaine blinked, not expecting that response. Tito seemed groggy, like he had just woken up from a dream—or as if he had just been broken from a genjutsu. A moment passed, and when Kaine was recovering from his own surprise, Tito shook his head and spoke again, cutting his teacher off. "Nevermind, I misspoke. I meant to say I still can't feel it. It just felt like your hand was pushing on me, still. Maybe I don't have any chakra?"

Something was wrong—obviously, _something_ was wrong, but it was taking Kaine's mind a few moments to process it. His stomach was growling in the mean time. "Right...well, I apologize Tito, but I don't think I can help you any further." He cut his conversation short and he turned around to walk up to Akemi. She was reviewing hand signs, and Kaine leaned in to whisper something in her ear. She didn't look happy to be interrupted, but her brow furrowed when she took in what he had to say.

As Kaine finished speaking, he left without another word, leaving Akemi holding the baggage in her head. She had eyes like a capture deer, then shook her head, running fingers through her long, light hair. An announcement followed: "Hey, uh...how about we cut this session a bit short? I have to check something," she said to the confused class, giving one glance toward the leaving Kaine.

Rika rose her hand, and Akemi looked to her in expectation. "Should I wait here for you to get back, Aki?" Rika asked.

Akemi smiled gently at Rika, shaking her head. "No—actually, I want you to come with me." Akemi waved a hand along, and Rika stood up to join her as she walked away from the training field. The other students were left behind, still wondering what just happened. Tito, in particular, seemed rather confused by the events. He was still rubbing his head and trying to figure out why his thoughts suddenly felt so hazy.

* * *

For the second time in recent days, Minoru's door was flung open without announcement; this time it was the pair of Akemi and Rika who entered, and not the hot-blooded Kaine Hamasaki. Akemi stood in silence as she allowed the door to close behind her, keeping Rika close with a hand on her nearest, slender shoulder. She waited for Minoru to address her.

"Akemi Yamaguchi; Rika Mori. I was not expecting either of you," came the smooth voice that echoed heavily through the chamber. "Have you something you wish to discuss? Something that could not have waited until I summoned you here, myself?"

Rika felt out of place, but when she tried to turn and make herself scarce, Akemi used the grip on her shoulder to turn her forward and keep her still. When Minoru's trusted right hand opened her mouth, she was as respectful as could be. "Hamasaki just told me something a bit...strange, to say the least. Rika's here because I want her to hear it as well."

Minoru was silent for a moment, but he replied as soon as Akemi's voice ceased reflecting from the walls. "Oh? Then I assume it was something important."

"Don't act like you don't already know, Master Minoru. You know everything about this world and all its people," Akemi answered, keeping her tone subservient, but with a little bit of sass thrown in. "He said that—" She was abruptly cut off by a harsh vibration that ripped through the ground, nearly throwing her off balance. Rika was nearly dropped to her knees, but Akemi managed to stabilize her with the tough hand on the shoulder. "What the hell was that? Is Hamasaki doing something crazy...?"

Minoru answered immediately, a hint of urgency in his voice. "No. Our friends from the Leaf have decided to show themselves. Excuse me; your concerns will need to wait." The enigmatic leader of the Truth hurried out of his chamber and through the door, leaving Akemi and Rika there looking at one another, left alone in the darkness.

* * *

The tremors could be felt throughout the village, and some of the loosely structured homes that residents had made for themselves began to fall down in their wake. Minoru swiftly walked through the confusion, never losing his poise but moving far more quickly than the denizens had grown used to. He was clearly in a poor mood as he reached the outskirts of his personal barrier, passing the armory and all of the trees which had been engraved with his motto, 'truth.' The shaking came in waves, and was felt at regular, fixed intervals. Whatever it was, it was created intentionally.

Minoru ignored pleas for an explanation, making good time. He stood within the barrier, looking out—he could see the attackers clearly, though he himself was still hidden behind his shield along with his people. Others had gathered around him, some staggering against the vibrations and others standing easily. Minoru turned to address them. "Leave this to me," he called, and despite the commotion, he was heard perfectly. Minoru turned to face the barrier, sticking his hand out and touching against it—his own chakra dissolved at his touch and made an opening for him and him alone. As he stepped out, the attackers stopped their bombardment. The barrier closed behind him.

There were two dozen of them, all coordinating an assault upon the barrier in unison. Earth users, it seemed like, as they were firing off massive boulders to slam into the forcefield, causing it to shake and ripple violently, though it did not break or crack. Minoru's sudden appearance seemed to catch them off guard, and their ranks were quickly formed into a semi-circle to surround him, seeking to give him no means of escape, save for turning back from whence he came. They were dressed like Anbu, as one might expect—Minoru picked them out as a large portion of the siege who had apparently grown impatient with lying around in the shadows.

In turn, Minoru had no patience for their existence. They had paused when he emerged, but they quickly resumed their assault, focusing on the newly arrived challenger. They began with shuriken, but they were all deflected—next came the boulders, but they were shattered. The Truth's commander destroyed his opponents with the speed of an eye blink. Dust rose as he moved, and by the time it had settled, two dozen opponents found themselves face down on the dirty ground, writhing in pain and clutching various body parts. No blood, no death; there was only brutally effective neutralization.

As Minoru stood amidst the decimated ranks and massive chunks of fractured stone, the leader of the siege brigade stepped forward from his concealment, his oversized red mask gleaming in the late evening sun. "Well, well, well," he said smoothly. "I had not expected such an honor to visit me so quickly." Mamban threw his arms to either side and dipped his body into a respectful bow. "I thought to myself: 'surely he will send a sacrificial lamb or two to soften us up before coming to us himself,' and yet here you are..." He stood his back up straight, then lurched to one side quirkily.

"And I had not expected you to behave so foolishly. You must have known that your forces were insufficient to threaten _me,_" Minoru replied sternly. "Have you come to surrender?"

Mamban giggled childishly. "Surrender? No, you misunderstand my position, Minoru. I have come to offer you an alliance—a chance for survival."

Minoru didn't budge. His mouth was stoic and the rest of his face lurked beneath his headwrap, hidden completely from sight. "What use would I have for an alliance with the likes of you?"

"We both want the same thing," Mamban said back. "You of all people should know that my loyalties are not to the Leaf alone."

Minoru tightened his jaw. "Such things should not be said aloud."

"Ahh, would it disrupt your narrative if I were to be overheard? Kaine Hamasaki was quite useful in telling us what we wanted to know...And based on what he tells us, you've done as you said you would, haven't you? You've created a paradise of power; a force to oppose the evils of the Leaf Village." Mamban looked over Minoru's shoulder toward the emptiness. He knew what lurked beyond the illusory treeline—a sprawling village full of promising trophies, yet threatened by dwindling food stores. "It _has _become desperate, though, hasn't it? Have you been feeding them too much, perhaps?"

"I value freedom, old friend. It seems your leader does not think the same way." Minoru nudged one of the incapacitated bodies lying at his feet, kicking at its shoulder with a wooden sandal. "They've been covered with controlling seals...but you must have known that already."

"Of course—I put them there myssself," Mamban replied, hissing like the snake whose mask he wore.

"How you've changed," Minoru said calmly. "To think that you would submit yourself to becoming one of their slavers. A student of mine, Akemi Yamaguchi, tells me that you call yourself Mamban now."

"It's true, it's true...It seems we have both given up on our old selves. We weren't good enough to enact real change, then, were we?" Mamban callously flicked a wrist, sending off an arcing splash of thick green acid which sloshed onto his nearest minion. The stunned and unconscious person made no noise as he melted into the dirt, leaving behind nothing more than a cloud of clean, pale green mist that rose into the air and dispersed. "Now, though...perhaps we are each strong enough to see our ambitions through."

"You have become something disgusting, 'Mamban'," Minoru said, dropping himself into a combat stance.

"Coming from a hypocrite such as yourself, that's hardly offensive," came the slithery response. "I wonder how many of your villagers know what lurks in your past...or what's behind those unsightly bandages you wear over your face. Perhaps I'll pluck them off."

"Spare me your rhetoric...you know that you are no match for me." Minoru was confident, and perhaps it was deserved. Mamban's entire platoon was lying scattered and broken at his feet.

"Perhaps I wasn't in the old days, but much has changed, S—I mean, Minoru." Mamban waved his hand, dismissing his own notion. "Even if I cannot defeat you, I know of somebody who can. He is nearby; you must have sensed him."

Minoru hummed, unimpressed. "Kakashi Hatake is dangerous, but he is also intelligent. He knows better than to challenge us by himself."

"Us?" Mamban parroted. "Do you happen to mean...yourself and the village? Or is it the two of us standing here now?"

"This feverish dream you have of an alliance with my village? It will never become reality." Minoru relaxed his fighting stance, opting not to get too deeply involved in a battle. For all of his posturing, he knew for certain that he would be at a disadvantage if Kakashi interfered in a high level scuffle. The silver-headed copy ninja was proving to be a more painful thorn in his side than he had expected.

"We'll see how long you can keep a brave face," Mamban said forebodingly, turning as if he were going to leave. "I wonder—when you founded this place, did you think that you had discovered land with some hidden, untapped potential? You should see now that your settlement exists on war-torn soil. Crops refuse to grow, and the fish have long since abandoned the waters. Somebody with your level of insight must have foreseen a future of starvation, and yet you tried anyway—I admire your resolve to this very day."

"The truth is immortal, Mamban. Even if these people die, the idea will persist. I will witness the Leaf as it is crushed for its lies—and you will be counted among their ranks when my judgment comes to pass." Minoru threatened war with his words, but he had no fear in his heart. His people were loyal—he had made absolutely certain of that. They would fight and die for his cause, down to the last man. If he ultimately failed, he would rebuild and try again.

"I intend to starve you all into submission. Whenever your people make a move, mine will be there to resist it. Come in force, or not at all." Mamban chuckled, twirling about whimsically until settling on a random direction to depart toward. He left his subordinates on the ground, dazed; it would do Minoru no good to capture them. They were lost forever; he had no way of reversing the seals that bound and gagged their minds.

Mamban left through the trees, and Minoru made no attempt to stop him. They were both at a stalemate, so long as Kakashi Hatake had his attention on them. The easiest way to ensure victory would be to win Kakashi's support—in truth, the Jonin was just a wrench thrown into a colossal power struggle, but a _heavy_ wrench he was. He was revered, or _feared_, in every country of the known world as a legendary shinobi—his reputation rivaled that of his late mentor, the Yellow Flash. Not even Minoru was willing to risk a direct confrontation with him, and he had to assume that Mamban felt the same way.

Meanwhile, high in the trees with Tenzo at his side, Kakashi had been watching with his Sharingan. Even from the considerable distance, he managed to read Minoru's lips, though Mamban's mouth was concealed behind a full mask and it was impossible to know what he had said. While reading Minoru's lips, Kakashi had also made a discovery that struck him as very interesting. He looked to Tenzo after the two opposing forces had at last parted ways, speaking quietly. "Tell me how Kaine got into the village—I want to know the seals, and anything else important...I intend to visit Minoru in his quarters tonight."

* * *

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	14. Her First Lie

**Welcome to the next chapter!**

* * *

Akemi and Rika were left alone in Minoru's chamber, with only each other and the darkness. The rumbling of the ground continued for a moment, but its regular intervals abruptly stopped coming—that's when Rika whispered. "What's happening, Aki?"

Akemi shrugged, though it was more of a habit than anything. Neither of them could see two inches in front of their faces in that room, but she didn't intend on stepping back into the light until she had spoken with Minoru. He would have to come back there sooner or later, and he was going to find her waiting there, no matter how long it took. "I don't know, but if Minoru's handling it personally, he won't take long."

"So...what did Kaine say to you?" Rika asked next, sitting down and leaning her back against a hard metal wall. It was difficult to get comfortable, and she groaned while wriggling around, sitting on her hands.

Akemi chuckled, her lovely voice echoing in the presumed emptiness. "I'll tell you what he said when you finally tell me why you came here. You know we're not a joke, now; you know that people die doing what we do. Why would a sweet, beautiful girl like you give up a home and family to come here and become a soldier instead?"

In the darkness, Rika blushed at the compliment. "Well...why do _you_ stay here, Aki? I know you joined with him at first because you were all alone, but now...you're _so_ strong. You could make it on your own if you wanted to—easily." Rika countered the question with another question, having gotten fairly good at deflecting Akemi's constant needling.

"I'm here because I have total faith in Minoru and his cause. I'd die for him if I had to, see?" Akemi rubbed her hand along the chipped stone of her forehead protector, tracing the engraved symbol of a flower with her fingertip, pausing to think. "I'm his right hand, and it's my duty to follow his will. No matter what he tells me to do, I do it. He trusts me, and it's for good reason—I'm his tool to use as he sees fit, you understand?"

Rika worried about what was happening outside, but she did feel safe with Akemi. Despite their failed mission a week prior, Rika knew that she could rely on her sensei to protect her no matter what happened. Recalling that night, she should have been dead, and she knew it—Mamban should have killed her along with her friends, but for some reason she was 'worth saving.' Rika had spent every night since then lying awake and trying to figure out what that meant. Sure, she had gotten more skilled with time and training, but Akemi was infinitely more useful to the village—to risk herself for Rika was a terribly irresponsible decision for her to make. Rika sat in silence, mulling over it again. "I don't know, Aki...Are you really sure you want to be somebody's tool forever?"

"As long as he needs me, I'll be here for him." Akemi nodded.

"Then why did you risk your life for me, the other night?" Rika asked, then went regretfully quiet. Her voice was dried up, like she had lost her nerve halfway through asking the question but couldn't stop the half-formed words from escaping on their own. She felt odd asking about it; they had both been stubbornly silent about the ordeal and its immediate aftermath. They had been forced to acknowledge Mako and Fiona's deaths, but Rika still had no idea what had truly led Akemi to make the decision she did.

"Don't ask dumb questions," Akemi said from the darkness. It was a hasty reply, and her head was turned away. Rika could vaguely make out the movement of her sensei's hand vigorously straightening her own hair. "I already told you, I saved you because you'll be useful someday."

"But...you're _already_ useful. What if you got hurt trying to save me? Really, you almost did..." Rika paused, trailing off and remembering the long trek home. Akemi had lost a boot during the escape, and she had loudly complained the whole way back about walking through the woods with one foot bare, and no chakra. "Am I really worth that much to the village?"

"Seriously," Akemi said, snapping toward Rika. "Stop asking dumb questions, okay?" She was agitated, and left it at that. She hurried to change the subject. "The shaking's done; Minoru will probably come back soon." At that point, Akemi would have said _anything_ to avoid seriously trying to figure out the answer to Rika's question. She wasn't very good at that kind of thing—she had always had a healthy detachment from her students and soldiers; the fact that she had done what she did during that mission was actually beginning to worry her. For her, the loss of Mako and Fiona was business as usual. She only felt their absence so terribly hard because of what had happened alongside it. No matter how much she thought on it, Akemi couldn't name the emotion that overtook her and forced her into action to rescue Rika—at the time, the risk didn't matter to her. She had moved without putting any logical thought into it. The uncertainty of her own actions had been keeping her up at night—she hadn't even _eaten_ since that day.

"I'm sorry, sensei," Rika said, sensing that she was treading on sensitive ground.

Akemi shushed into the air, suddenly. She reached her hand over to clap against Rika's mouth, bidding her silent. The latter let out an _mmph, _but didn't struggle beyond that. Akemi whispered, "Quiet—Do you hear that...?" In the silent darkness, once the rumbling and idle chatter had been muted, one could hear the very faintest of breaths coming from the abyss. Akemi gave Rika a single, bracing pat on the shoulder, followed by another whisper—"Wait here." She stood up, taking steps toward the back of the steel cavern. Minoru had rules about his chamber—one should never pass a certain threshold, unless one had an intention to assassinate him. She was flirting with a dangerous situation, but curiosity was a powerful force.

Just as Akemi's foot was about to pass that no-exceptions threshold, the steel door behind her wailed open, startling Rika and her teacher alike into unified yelps that echoed far into the room. It was a massive chamber, and the darkness made it impossible for anybody to see to the end, even if they had a source of light—and although it swallowed light, it spit sound right back at the people who made it. Akemi felt her heart thumping hard against her chest, the viciously pumping organ nearly knocking her off balance as it tried to escape her ribs and leave her behind. She punched her own gut, trying to beat herself into submission and stop the jittering in her bones—Minoru was seen standing beneath the door frame, one hand holding the steel slab open and the other hanging at his waist. There was a sturdy frown on the visible part of his face.

"I, uh...welcome back, Master Minoru," Akemi said quickly, bowing at the hips and holding her hands together in front of her chest. Rika was completely silent; she had replaced Akemi's hand with her own, keeping her lips clamped over as tightly as she could. "I take it that we're not in danger anymore?" Akemi needled, trying to encourage her leader to speak up and break his disapproving silence.

Minoru stood in quietude for a moment, and the thunking sound of each one of Akemi's rapid heartbeats made her worry that he was going to do or say something to discipline her—probably for stepping too far. The blind man always knew when somebody was out of line, even if it didn't make any real sense to her _how_ he knew. "Not in immediate danger, no..." Minoru finally said, losing his stern frown and stepping into his room to let the door close behind him on its own. Rika was seated off to the side, and she had almost been clobbered by the door. She had picked a poor place to settle down, shrinking herself as much as possible to avoid being looked at—not that it mattered, since she knew her patron was blind anyway.

"Good," Akemi said, shaking her hands out and trying to get her blood flow regulated. She was probably a brand new shade of red in the face, blushing uncharacteristically after being startled. She could still hear the last echoes of her girly shriek, and it made her feel pitiful—at least Rika's voice was also carried, so she wasn't alone in her embarrassment. "What was going on?" Akemi asked, clearing her throat and trying to recapture her own dignity.

"Nothing to worry about; the rabble has been repelled." Minoru gave Akemi's shoulder a soft pat as he walked past her, but she didn't turn to watch him. She was still frozen with guilt; her blood felt cold in her veins when she thought about being caught snooping too deeply into her master's affairs. Why had she been so concerned, anyway? Her jittery imagination must have been related to what Kaine said to her outside—when she listened closely, she no longer heard the faint breathing she thought she had. Minoru spoke up, slicing through Akemi's paranoia. "Now...what were you about to tell me?"

Akemi felt herself tense up, and surely Minoru had sensed the change in her demeanor. She thought about lying to him, but he would have certainly been able to tell. Something in her body had changed momentarily during her fright, and it was leading her mind to think crazy thoughts. "Kaine told me something at the training field; it was odd of him to say it. I figured I should tell you about it, even though I'm sure you already know what he's thinking." Akemi began, looking around in the darkness, spotting Rika's obediently silent silhouette near the doorway.

Minoru nodded. "Very well. What did Kaine Hamasaki say to you?"

"It's...well, don't take him too seriously, Master Minoru—Hamasaki's been under a lot of stress, yeah? I just, well...I don't want you to think I was trying to keep it hidden from you, so I'm telling you up front." Akemi felt nervous, but it was the first time she ever had that sensation in his presence. Her adrenaline must have still been high from his sudden arrival.

"I'm listening," Minoru said, repeating his willingness to hear her out. Despite Akemi's awkward stalling, he had a seemingly infinite amount of patience.

"He said that..." Akemi cleared her throat, looking again over her shoulder toward where she knew Rika was lurking silently. "He said that I'm a bad teacher, because I couldn't get Tito to understand chakra." She said, finding her confidence and speaking fluidly. "Do you think he's right, Master Minoru?"

Rika was the one to answer, asserting her position before Minoru could open his mouth. "That big-headed son of a bitch! Don't listen to a word he says, sensei; you're the best there is!"

Minoru chuckled; it was an earnest sounding laughter. "It seems you have your answer, Akemi. Tell me—why are you so concerned about such a flippant comment?"

Akemi shrugged, turning to face her master. "I dunno, really...just, maybe he's onto something, you know? Tito may be dumb, but any idiot can understand chakra with the right education, don't you think? I mean, Rika here is making great progress, but it can't only be because I'm teaching her...she's got all this potential wrapped inside her, and that's got nothing to do with me. What if all my successful students are just coincidental, and I'm actually no good at all?" She gulped, seemingly wondering to herself if she even wanted to know the answer to that question.

Minoru stood in silence, contemplative and stoic. Over a minute passed before he spoke again. "You surprise me, Akemi. Your confidence has been on shaky ground ever since you failed your resupply mission...but you can rest assured, my beloved right hand—I do not hold you responsible for the failure. Mamban is a devious and cunning opponent; in fact, I met with him just a moment ago, outside of the barrier."

"I hope you broke his face in," Rika said, firing the words like projectile venom. She wasn't afraid to speak her mind in front of Minoru. That fearlessness was rare among newcomers, and even rarer among the old guard.

"Not this time," Minoru responded with a compassionate voice. "He will be dealt with, when the moment arrives, but the priority right now is to secure a source of food for our people. The supplies have run dangerously low; we have enough for tomorrow, and perhaps another day after that. Those who have noticed the shortage have voluntarily begun to fast already, but that cannot continue forever. Once the last berry is eaten, we will be living on borrowed time."

"Are you gonna send us on another supply mission?" Akemi asked, tucking her hands together behind her back. She seemed easygoing, now. Whatever had been bothering her had seemingly melted into the back of her mind.

"Right now, it's too dangerous to launch such a mission. With Mamban and his living puppets out there waiting to intercept, the casualties would be too great." Minoru hummed, milling through the bulk of his thoughts and settling on one. "We need to do something desperate."

"Desperate?" Akemi repeated him, quirking her head to the side slightly.

"Mamban proposed an alliance," Minoru admitted. While it was a painful thing to reveal, his resolve remained perfectly still. "We may need to hear him out on his terms."

Akemi blinked, and so did Rika. They were both quiet as they considered the implications. Rika was about to protest, but Akemi beat her to it. "With all due respect, Master Minoru, I'd rather starve than give that bastard even a _moment_ of consideration. He's our enemy more than anybody else. I watched him kill two of our own."

"If you would rather starve, then I will not stop you...but the rest of our village is in need of nourishment, Akemi. I will do what must be done to preserve our existence. Do you understand my reasoning?" As always, the esteemed head of the Truth Village kept his tone completely stable. If he experienced any misgivings or regrets, they were entirely concealed within his own head.

Akemi pouted, slackening her shoulders and sighing. "Right...well, your mind is made up. I'll respect your decision, as always, Master Minoru." She bowed, and then she turned to leave. She grabbed Rika by the upper arm, lifting her from her seated position and bringing her out of the room. Minoru said nothing as they vanished from his presence and closed his door.

Once they were outside, Akemi continued walking with Rika's arm in her grip, guiding her along through the village, headed toward the dwindling food storage center. Rika protested as she was dragged so assertively, "Hey, wait; where are we going, Aki?"

Akemi cut her eyes to look at her passenger. "We're going to meet Hamasaki by the mess area," she said pointedly.

Rika rolled her eyes. "After he called you a bad teacher, he's lucky I don't want to burn his hair; why're we going to meet him?"

Akemi shushed Rika, stopping mid-step and turning to grab her student by both shoulders. She leaned in close, touching her lips to the base of Rika's ear and murmuring. The shorter girl seemed flustered by the action, blinking several times, until she understood why they were suddenly so close together: "I was lying, Rika," Akemi said dangerously. "The first lie I've ever told to Master Minoru...Hamasaki didn't call me a bad teacher." Her eyes were cutting around, highly alert. Based on what they could both see, nobody else was paying the pair any mind.

Rika sputtered, trying to find words, but only came up with a "Huh?"

"I'll explain when we get there, just...don't look too suspicious, alright?" Akemi warned.

Rika looked impressed, whispering delicately. "Wow. You know, for being from a village called Truth, you're a really good liar, Aki..."

Akemi sneered and stepped away from Rika, then she smiled openly as if she had just whispered a friendly joke into her ear. "Funny, right?" Akemi said aloud with a nudge of her elbow to Rika's forearm.

Rika was quick on the uptake, nodding and laughing as convincingly as she could. "Oh, tee-hee! You're the _funniest_, Aki," she said uproariously. It sounded real enough to _her_, but her teacher cringed with the forced inflections.

"On second thought, let's just stay quiet, yeah?" Akemi said, winking to her partner in crime as they continued moving. She didn't know how or when she had somehow found the courage to lie to Minoru's face, but regardless of all the details...she knew things were about to get very complicated.

* * *

Tsunade had just finished having a discussion with Kakashi's favorite messenger hound, Pakkun. She was in a sour mood as a result, and the door of Danzo Shimura's home-turned-prison paid the price. The livid Hokage slammed it open, cracking some of its framing. Immediately she fired off, demanding an explanation: "Kakashi tells me that we've got Anbu operating in the south; I've authorized no such thing!"

Danzo was seated over a steaming cup of tea, bandages wrapped all around his head, his arm perpetually in a sling. Though he looked injured, he was in very good health. His pleasant day was dampened by the intruder, but he could not speak against the Hokage for coming to him with her concerns. "And you suspect me of subverting you, Princess Tsunade?" His crackling, elder voice was calm, but awash with contempt for his elected superior.

"Don't treat me like a child, Danzo. Officially, you've been stripped of your place on the council and your organization has been disbanded...so I know you'd rather not admit to the dealings you orchestrate behind my back, but I'm _not_ as dumb as you think I am. Who's Kaine Hamasaki, _really_?" the blonde woman of monstrous strength spoke with the authority inherent to her position. Her strength of speech was nearly as strong as her strength of fist, and any man or woman lesser than Danzo would have cowered in the face of her rage. "Tell me what's going on down there. _Now!_" She delivered a no-nonsense chop to his table, shattering the wood and sending splinters all around the nearly-barren room. Danzo had deftly fetched his tea cup from the surface just before it met a fragmented end.

He wiped a hand down his robe to free it of wooden debris, and took a nonchalant sip of tea; her temper was nothing new to him. "Kaine Hamasaki is an experienced operative of the Hidden Leaf. He originally comes from the Hidden Mist region; he was picked up as a straggler nearly thirteen years ago. His name must have slipped through the cracks of your personnel database..." Danzo began a pre-planned answer, and Tsunade was having none of it.

Unfortunately, she had already broken the only piece of furniture in the room. In absence of another statement piece, she pointed a harsh finger toward Danzo's nose, growling out an accusation. "You're lying to me, and I know it—Kakashi has already told me that Kaine was _never_ one of ours."

"And you believed him?" Danzo opened his left eye, looking disdainfully at the Hokage from his seated position.

"I trust him a hell of a lot more than I ever trusted you," she bit back, grinding her teeth behind closed lips.

Danzo sighed regretfully, taking a sip from his cup and then setting it down on the floor beside him, near a ruined table leg. "Kaine Hamasaki _was_ one of ours when I recommended him to you. Initially, he was caught as a spy, moving amongst our ranks and searching for weaknesses in the village infrastructure. When he was captured, I ordered for him to be brought to me."

"And you never thought to tell _me_ about this...? Do you _enjoy_ getting under my skin!?" Tsunade was steaming, but at least she was getting straight answers now. If he had been brave enough to open up another canned reply, the walls would have probably come tumbling down in the wake of her mighty retaliation.

Danzo smiled a good-natured smile as if he were somebody's loving grandfather, and the sincerity of it made Tsunade's flesh crawl. His tone was similarly paternal: "I act for the Leaf, and the Leaf alone—you are merely the Hokage. You should remember that your will is secondary to the will of the village."

"Yeah? And whose will best represents the village...yours?" The buxom lady was snide and accusational.

"So it would seem, Lady Tsunade," Danzo answered unapologetically. "Kaine Hamasaki was meant to be an envoy, of sorts. I placed him under a genjutsu and sent him on a mission to serve as my liaison. Unfortunately, he has long since broken free of the control. He sent one report, in disjointed terms, about the so-called Village Hidden by Truth."

"You knew from the start that it was confirmed to be a Hidden Village, then? Why was I given such a vague report? I sent our strongest down there under the assumption that there _might _have been a village." Tsunade set her hands on her hips, her manicured nails glimmering in the lantern light of Danzo's modest estate.

"It was my hope that the issue would be resolved long before it became a major concern of yours." Danzo replied, keeping a collected head. He was being picked apart, but he never let his political rival know it. "A footnote in our village's history, and nothing more. I expected the Hatake child and Kinoe to retrieve Kaine Hamasaki and return right away."

"We've thrust two of our greatest assets into an unknown situation because you _hoped _it wouldn't be an issue?" Tsunade was trembling at the wrists, but she did her best to remain stable. She was never one to reserve her emotions, and she was having a monumental amount of difficulty in resisting a punch to the undermining half-traitor's face. She wiped her plump, ruby lips, closing her eyes and lowering her voice. "Did the elder council know the full details of this arrangement? I would hate to think that I've been conspired against—they were unusually insistent on my prompt assignment of those two to this mission ." Tsunade's pale forehead was scrunched, anger pulsing beneath the surface.

"You're putting me in an awkward circumstance, Hokage—am I to understand that you are implicating Homura and Koharu, as well as myself, in a scheme against your position?" Danzo had a way of turning everything into a power play, and the visible frustration in Tsunade's youthful complexion conveyed just how much she hated engaging him directly. "This level of paranoia is unhealthy."

"Just tell me who these other operatives are, Danzo—I don't want to be here any more than _you_ want me to be." She was tempted to give up. He was a stubborn wall; old traditions were his bricks and underhanded maneuvers were his mortar. "Tell the whole truth, and then I'll leave you to your misery," Tsunade offered.

"They do follow my orders—when Kaine Hamasaki became unresponsive, I dispatched a small crew to retrieve him, with a directive to be as discreet as possible. They had no luck in finding him—not until two weeks ago, that is. Truthfully, their luck cost them their lives." Danzo coughed, tucking his slung arm in front of his face to catch the result. "By that time, Kakashi Hatake and Kinoe had already arrived—further reinforcements were unnecessary."

"Who sent the report that informed you of their deaths, I wonder?" Tsunade challenged him to answer.

"A final dispatch from a messenger pigeon, Princess Tsunade—the paper and the bird were both stained by the dead man's blood." Danzo was lying, and Tsunade knew it—he would never be completely honest about something so secretive. She had no means to call him out on it, though, and it was a frustrating moment of incomplete information.

"Fine...If that's all you're willing to say, then so be it. I'll be keeping my eyes on you in the coming days. I hope that won't put you in an 'awkward circumstance.'" Tsunade teased, feeling at least momentarily victorious when her rival scowled beneath his bandages. The wrinkles on his face made it difficult to read his expressions, but she could tell he was unhappy. That was good enough for her, in the moment—from there, she only hoped that Kakashi and Tenzo were having better luck than she was with sorting out the mess.

* * *

"He'll come around, since he has no other choice," Mamban said aloud as he traipsed through the forest. He was moving with purpose, delivering himself far away from the location where some of his minions had reported sightings of Kakashi and one other, very intriguing figure. Though he knew that the two were in the area _someplace_, he was unaware of exactly where they had settled down. It would have been a waste of time to figure out where they lurked just to use that information to turn the other way and escape. He gambled by moving in a single direction, hinging away from the Truth. "Minoru is stubborn, but he isn't stupid," he added.

He was being tailed by three of his own soldiers, all wearing masks similar to his own and fanned out behind him. They were special—his hand-chosen and personal team. During his confrontation with Minoru, he had kept them back in safety. He did not want to risk them, as he knew the stakes of appearing at the doorstep of _any_ Hidden Village, even if it _was_ a fledgeling one. He was already down twenty-four troops as a result of his bold actions, but it was an acceptable loss—the message had to be delivered loudly. He intended to sow discord among the citizens of the Truth in order to encourage defections or—ideally—total cooperation.

"Do we sincerely need his help, my master?" A voice asked from behind a mask. They were all four taking a leisurely stroll through the barren woods, skirting along the shoreline on the northern end of the peninsula. They had nothing but time to kill until something else happened of note. There were guards and patrols already committed to scouring the landscape; in addition, dozens of trained spotters were keeping an eye on the invisible barrier with instructions to kill or capture on sight. The Truth Village was going to either submit or perish, and the distinction would be made in very short order.

"Do we need him? No, but of course not..." Mamban replied with an airy laugh. "But his cooperation is nonetheless important: if we fail to secure his aid, then we will inevitably receive his wrath, instead."

"Don't we have that already?" The voice asked again. The figure was male, and though his mask was similar to Mamban's, it wasn't identical—its coloring was closer to yellow, and the snake-head lacked the flourishes of a king cobra. It resembled a python, instead. "He wants to erase us."

Another voice chimed in, this one female. "He's mostly neutral for now," she said, echoing Mamban's sentiment. The trio appeared to have their free will intact, and their master had no issue with allowing them to speak as they liked. "He doesn't really know if it's better to side with us, or to die by our hands—rather, if it's worth it to try to kill us all, knowing our resources." The woman's mask was dark green and had features similar to a common grass snake. She was the shortest of the whole quartet, and her robe hugged her frame a bit more tightly than her comrades to show off the feminine nature of her body.

"Boss, why don't you just put one of your seals onto him?" The python-masked man asked, as if it were an entirely new idea.

"Something so simple would not work on a man like him—not anymore. He was changed just as we were," Mamban clarified.

"That little brat's become a lot more ruthless over the years, hasn't he?" The third follower acknowledged, turning his light blue mask toward his equals. The facial features and painted markings of that one's faceplate imitated a blue racer snake—the theme was quite clear. While Mamban's mask had an open mouth and a dangling tongue, his subordinates had their 'mouths' firmly shut. "I wonder if he even remembers us."

Mamban spoke again. "He does remember, I promise...How could he forget?" The laughter that rose from beneath his deep red mask echoed through the lifeless forest. "When I saw him today, I could see the pain in his quivering lip; the agony was flowing freely in his blood. I could almost _taste_ the memories."

"Then it's time he felt that pain on the outside, as well, right?" The woman suggested, sinister and bloodthirsty.

"Weren't you listening?" The blue one spoke, chastising his fellow. "We want him to come around to our point of view; we can't do that if he isn't willing to negotiate by choice."

"Give him a few more days without his precious food supply. He will grow desperate as the villagers begin to realize that his truth is everything but," Mamban announced, taking a moment off from his travel to do a quick dance. He hissed manically as he twirled, spreading his arms out wide. "When his people begin to turn on him, he will have nowhere to go, save for the warmth of my alliance." He spoke in between compulsive dance steps

"Not sure if 'warmth' is the right word, boss," yellow python said with doubt.

"Yeah, it's more like a goopy, melting kind of thing," the green-masked girl said while wiggling her fingers suggestively.

"In any case, we need to be attentive. If we see any of his people in the wild, we must capture them and turn them to our service. Willingly or not, his ranks will bolster ours." Mamban said when he finished his spontaneous twirling, brushing off the sides of his dark robe and sighing in satisfaction. "On the other hand, we are running low on time: Lord Danzo will soon notice that our actions have begun to veer away from his orders."

"Let him notice—we've got our own army, now," yellow said with a scoff.

"Be that as it may, there's also the matter of Kakashi Hatake; it seems the Leaf has sent a fail-safe. Will you be the one to deal with him if we are confronted?" Mamban directed this one at the python who had scoffed.

"Damn right I will," he replied without missing a beat. "Kakashi is a fairy tale. Word is that the Uchiha kid is the one who _really _dealt with Zabuza Momochi."

"Don't underestimate him—even if his reputation is exaggerated, he has the company of an old and peculiar relic. You would probably know him better by his old codename: Kinoe," Mamban said. "Now, he's called Tenzo, and he has become quite powerful with his wood release."

"How do we know Kakashi's mate is really Kinoe, anyway? Didn't he disappear into the Anbu fold a few years ago?" The woman asked.

"It's him—trust my instinct on this one, that's all I'll say to you about it." Mamban picked up speed, diving further into the trees. His companions accelerated to match him, and the plan proceeded to the next phase—watch and wait. "Soon, Minoru and his people will be ours; do you think he will regret leaving us to die, then?"

"If he doesn't regret it now, I'll make sure he does _later,_" the green girl replied. The other two, blue and yellow, nodded in silent unison.

"Excellent," Mamban said to finish that conversation. "Now, while we let Minoru simmer, let's talk about a quaint little circle called Monolith Point..."

* * *

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	15. Minoru's Gift

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* * *

Kaine was standing alone, parked on the side of the sturdy wooden food-storage house, arms crossed and head turned aside defiantly. He had never before felt so stupid, or so deceived. He ran his thoughts through his head a thousand and one times, checking himself for insanity after each word. By then, he had already blown his chance of going back from it all. Whispering into Akemi's ear was the last opportunity he might have had to rethink his spontaneous plan. No—it was too late, even then. He had already realized that the village was something different from what he had always believed. After a few slow realizations, they all coalesced into the epiphany that nothing had actually changed about the village in those two weeks of absence. The change was within _him_, and although it might have been poetic to simply call himself a reborn man with a new zest for life and peace, the truth was all the more sinister.

His change of attitude arose because the poison had worn off. Not the metaphorical poison of Minoru's silky smooth teachings, or the personal adrenaline high of building and maintaining something for one's self—something that truly belonged to _him_ and nobody else. No, the poison was neither of those things. This was a poison that was nearly impossible to expect, and he never would have imagined it until all of the individual clues and inconsistencies came together at the end of a contemplative rope. He was busy in his thoughts while waiting for Akemi, and then he saw her approaching with Rika in tow—_Good, _he thought, _that saves me the trouble of having to fetch her myself later._ As Akemi got close, she opened her mouth, but her loudness was nowhere to be found. She understood the sensitivity of the situation in a way that gave Kaine faith as she clammed back up and waltzed in closer. Perhaps she was not as lost as he had once believed. His first realization—what had prompted him to go to her above all else—was the hug she had given him on the night of his return. He had never seen such emotions from her before then, never felt such a vulnerability in her spirit.

The dusty-blonde girl with the flowing movements walked right up to Kaine, put a hand on his shoulder, and leaned in to whisper at his ear with warm breath. "You'd better explain quick, because I just told a lie to Master Minoru about you," she said, then stepped back. Others were around, but they were busy eating up the very last bits of the rations. Mountains of berries and nuts had become flecks of blue-gray fruit skin and tiny husks that were left behind by shelled legumes; some still had insubstantial bits of meat left upon them.

Kaine blinked at Akemi's dishonest revelation, then narrowed his eyes and scowled. "You lied to him about me? What did you _say_ exactly?" He demanded, but not with a voice any louder than the gently whistling wind. Somehow, Minoru's barrier prevented all things from entering, save for the lazy breezes of the world. The leaves it carried with it and anything else that touched the border were burned harshly, though.

"I told him that you called me a bad teacher, then he told me I was being silly, and then yadda yadda Minoru-speak. I kind of think he bought it, don't you, Rika?" Akemi turned to regard Rika, who stood there looking confused as could be. She nodded, though, silent as she waited for an explanation.

"He bought it...? Nobody has ever been able to lie to him before," Kaine said suspiciously. "Whatever, we're on a narrow timeline right now anyway. I already told you that we've been poisoned, and that you shouldn't be eating the food here." He then looked to Rika. "By the way, we've been poisoned, and you shouldn't be eating the food here," he repeated, directly to her.

"Poisoned...?" Rika chirped. She was about to panic, but Akemi put a hand on the top of her head and scribbled the shorter woman's black curls around. The familiar touch seemed to put her mind momentarily at ease, but her eyes were still wild with fear and an absence of understanding.

"Poisoned," Kaine confirmed pointedly. "Nothing dangerous, exactly...He can't afford to kill us. We're meant to be his hyper-obedient soldiers, right?" Kaine presented, knowing that every syllable was a risk to his life. His confidence was still wildly shaken after his defeat by Kakashi's hand. Kaine imagined that Minoru was probably even stronger than that; what chance would a relative novice like himself have against such a terrifying power? He had seen his leader effortlessly dismantle over twenty invading troops just minutes before Akemi arrived—troops of the same ilk who nearly defeated Kaine himself while numbering just three. "Poison with no distinct flavor, no aroma, no color. It's in the food, and every time we take a bite, we're reinforcing its control over us. I'm still not absolutely sure about it, but it makes a lot of sense when I replay the past couple of weeks in my head. Almost three weeks ago, I left this place with no doubts...but when I returned, nothing made sense...I thought the village had changed, but it could have been that the toxins were wearing off of me."

Akemi didn't look convinced, but she didn't immediately call him a liar, either. "That...are you sure about that?" She asked, knowing that he couldn't have possibly been sure. "If this stuff supposedly 'wore off,' then why would Minoru leave you there for so long and let it happen?"

"Maybe he honestly _couldn't _break me out, or maybe he expected me to be more loyal to him than this...and no, I'm not sure at all, but we're going to find out sometime tonight. I propose that we take a sample of our food supply here, and we take it to somebody I think we can trust to give us some answers." Kaine replied as well as he could, turning his head to observe the diners. The 'mess hall' was really just a collection of wobbly wooden benches, bowls, and a counter top that was usually—under more favorable conditions—stacked high with wild assortments of nuts, berries, grains and insects. Even the protein-rich bugs had become scarce. The hungry people were limited to what had already existed naturally within the barrier—Kaine himself had inadvertently made it impossible for the foraging teams to wander any further; he had provoked the suffocating siege.

"Somebody we can trust...? Wouldn't that be Master Minoru?" Akemi asked in a voice that sounded like a soft bell chiming. When she wasn't yelling and being pompous, there was a soothing quality to her speech. "Who else is there?"

"It's a man you haven't met, and one I think has a very good heart at his core. He can deceive like the best of us, but I can see in his eyes that he's not looking to hurt anybody." Kaine rationalized his hunch, watching Tito at one of the benches shovel down far more than the rest of the eaters combined, drowning himself in food to fuel his enormous bulk. That dimwitted fellow alone had probably cut their food reserves by several days as soon as he arrived. Again, Kaine felt the sickening churn of personal responsibility in his gut. He had brought nothing but trouble to his people on more than one occasion, but he had every intention of making it right. Perhaps his way of going about it was more dangerous than it needed to be, but it was the choice he had already made, and he had the wings-spread freedom to make it happen. "This man of mine is our only real hope of finding any peace out of this situation."

"You don't mean Kakashi Hatake, do you...?" Akemi asked, head tilted and eyes narrowed skeptically.

"No, of course not. Kakashi is a man of action; he deals with problems in his own way. I'm talking about his cohort, the man named Tenzo—he's the heir of Hashirama Senju's power, and a man who has a past like mine. He told me when I was lying in that hospital bed that he took a different path than most to become a shinobi. I'm more interested in _his_ story than I am in Kakashi's. Admittedly, the down side to trusting Tenzo is that we'll also have to put faith in Kakashi not to kill us on sight," Kaine said with a whispered chuckle. They were just barely out of earshot from others, as they were hanging around the back-most corner of the warehouse that he had helped build. The wooden structure was firm and large, but it was hollow inside that day—no new supplies had come in since Kaine left for Monolith Point in the past; a past that now seemed like it had happened so very, very long ago.

"So, what...?" Akemi began. "We just up and leave, despite the siege in place all around the village? How do you suppose we'll get past them, Hamasaki?" Akemi flicked him on the forehead—still no headband. She was going to get her enjoyment out of that bare, well-tanned vulnerability as long as she could get away with it.

Kaine _hmph_ed, but he didn't recoil from the flick. "Yeah, we're going to bust out of here hard and fast. The problem is, we're likely going to be doing it without Minoru's blessing. No offense, Akemi, but don't you think he knows that you were lying?" Kaine was looking around yet again, seeming antsy. Astor, his hawk, was perched on an overhead branch and keeping an eye out for suspicious behavior, but his call could only serve as an early warning. Realistically, trouble could have been coming from any direction. Fortunately, the bird's beak was firmly shut and he was preening about. No problems, yet.

Akemi shrugged. "Well, obviously he knew I was lying. I only hope that he doesn't know _why _I was lying. Maybe he thought little enough about my motivations to just let it slip through, you know?" Akemi turned to Rika. "I convinced_ her_, at least," the earth-type said with a teasing wink. Rika flattened her lips into a pencil-thin line and glared at her primary sensei, feeling like she was being made a fool of. She was kept quiet beneath the gravity of the talk, despite looking like she had something on her mind.

"Either way, we can't afford to stick around for much longer. When will you two be ready to go?" Kaine asked, thumbing the hilt of a kunai. He was dressed in full combat gear, complete with a vest and the sheathe of his sword. His beloved blade itself was still lost someplace in a barren part of the woods several miles from Monolith Point. He had every intention of getting it back, as well as his forehead protector, but his concerns were elsewhere in that heated moment of subversive behavior.

"Not just yet; let's go later tonight," Rika answered quickly, looking to Akemi. Her teacher shot a grimace back, disapproving of the delay. Rika spoke forward. "There are some things I don't want to leave behind, in case we never come back..." she trailed off, less sure of her answer by the end. Sheepishly, she sought approval:"Is that okay?"

Akemi was about to scold her, but Kaine picked up a hand to cut his shaky ally off her intended verbal path. "That's fine. I feel the same way, after all," Kaine interjected.

In the minority, Akemi huffed, crossing her arms. "Fine, then. Tonight after sundown we'll meet back here...and if we haven't come to our senses by then, we'll do something stupid together. Sounds like fun, doesn't it, Rika?" She nudged the student with a pale elbow, winking in her usual, falsified way. Akemi was worried, but tried not to show it. She didn't like feeling vulnerable like that, but even more she hated _looking _vulnerable.

"Right! I'm gonna go gather up some stuff, then. See ya tonight, Aki!" Rika declared with a goofy smile and a wave of her hand. It felt like any other farewell she had given, despite the heavy air that bogged her movements down. Before she left for good, though, she stopped and looked at her other teacher with a grunt. "I still think you're a big-headed son of a bitch, though, Kaine," she said, half-teasing, and then pivoted to run off.

Akemi giggled without meaning to, putting her hand over her mouth to try to stifle the noise. Its natural harshness made her sound a lot like a rusty, squeaking hinge. Kaine looked confused, "Wait, what did I do to her?" he asked.

"Oh, she said that earlier on, when I told Master Minoru that you called me a bad teacher. You know...Rika's a good kid, Hamasaki. I'll bet her sister is a good one, too," Akemi said, looking to Kaine with that 'I know who you've got a crush on' kind of glimmer in her eyes.

"Isn't Rika the same age as you? You've hardly got any right calling her a kid," Kaine spouted defensively, smirking as he deflected the topic.

"Yeah, you're right—between all of us, _you're_ the one who's a kid," Akemi chattered innocently, but her usually bright eyes were clouded over by the implications of the day. She idly watched more than a dozen people eating food from the tables, however scarce the remainder was becoming. The thought of every bite being laced with some secret poison was unnerving, but it was beginning to make sense to her why she had been having so much trouble with her thoughts and emotions—she really _hadn't_ eaten since the night she lost Mako and Fiona. Maybe the effect was wearing off of her, too. If she had been told a week ago that Minoru would allow his own people to be poisoned, she would have turned the blasphemer in to the master as soon as possible. Truthfully, she almost did it that day, as well, but something came over her just seconds beforehand and drove her toward uttering that very first lie.

"If I'm right about this poison, Akemi, we'll have to come back and free everybody. If I'm wrong, well...maybe we can still come back and beg for forgiveness." Kaine's eyes were closed, and although he was trying not to imagine the worst case scenario, it flooded his mind anyway. "Tell me that you trust me; tell me before it's too late whether or not you think what I'm doing is right."

Akemi paused for a split second, but when she answered she did it assertively. "I trust you, Hamasaki. I may think you're a loudmouth, a showboater, an asshole, and a crybaby, but _damn it_—I really do trust you. That's why I'm here, and_ that's_ why I didn't tell Master Minoru the truth. I don't know for sure if we're doing the right thing, but I've got your back no matter what happens...Make me a promise in return, though, okay?" She softened a bit, giving him the pleading eyes of a hungry puppy.

"Depends on the promise," Kaine replied, hard of eye and quick of thought.

Akemi swallowed, taking a difficult breath down her tense throat. "Don't let anything happen to Rika, okay? If something goes down, and I can't save her—or, you know, if you have to choose to save one of the two of us? I want you to promise me that you'll choose her."

"What the hell are you even talking about, Akemi?" Kaine cautioned. "Do you realize what you're asking me to say?"

She sighed in response, shaking her head and pinching the bridge of her nose between two dirty fingers. "No, actually I _really_ don't know what I'msaying anymore," she breathed out. "Forget it. I'll see you later." She waved him off, turning to walk away before he could engage the issue any further. Astor swooped in from his perch to land on Kaine's shoulder, having seen that the meeting was over.

Kaine ran a hand along the hawk's nearest feathers, producing a small fleck of dried mouse meat from one of his vest pockets, which Astor plucked up eagerly from his fingers. "I don't like change, Astor," Kaine confessed to his nonspeaking companion. The answer was a quizzical tilt of his partner's head, those big, domed eyes blinking once before Astor's beak returned to Kaine's hand for another bite of jerky. "Why did it all have to change?" Kaine quietly asked the sun, the sky, the trees, and the wind. They were all silent to his plea. He would need to find the answers for himself.

* * *

Kakashi had waited until the sun dropped, and until then he ran through the plan with Tenzo. He swallowed some of Tenzo's tracking seeds for the sake of safety, and he agreed to take a wireless headset along as well. With luck, the signal would be able to penetrate through the barrier—at very least, the seeds were already confirmed to serve their function from within the barricade. Verbal communication would be ideal, but not expected. In the darkness, Kakashi leaved their wooden perch from below and dropped to the leaves. In silence, he maneuvered in a long path around the village, diving into the water and making his approach along the outside edge. He knew as well as anyone that the trees surrounding the village were crawling with assassins and spotters; the only way to reach the barrier without raising suspicion from the outside was to swim, and so he swam.

It was a long way to go, but Kakashi utilized a technique similar to the earth-style burrow, granting himself greater speed beneath the supple waves. He had considered using the earth technique, in truth—it was a reliable way to get around many large barriers. Minoru's work was not so simple, however, and a glance of the Sharingan was all it took to confirm that the chakra shield extended deep underground, completing a perfect sphere. It was entirely impenetrable, unless one happened to know the password. The mission's success hinged on the accuracy of Tenzo's memory and the idea that the password would even work for an outsider.

Surfacing from the blueness of the salty sea, Kakashi shook his head to escape the biting cold of wetness, but the chill in the air remained even as he had finished partially drying himself in that manner. He approached the sandy shore and put his sandals onto the grainy surface. With a lift of his headband, he opened his Sharingan and confirmed the barrier's boundary. Tenzo had told him the signs Kaine had created. Standing there and taking a deep breath, Kakashi used his copy-ninja experience to imitate them seamlessly, slamming his palm into the sand and channeling the best version of his chakra that he could, playing out the technique with his instinct guiding the process. A tense moment passed—he had probably just alerted the entire village to his presence. Suddenly, the barrier opened up, revealing a thick lining of trees that could not be seen from the outside. He stepped through the small opening, and once he was within its warmth the doorway closed abruptly behind him. There was no turning back, anymore.

There were no guards posted along the borders, which puzzled Kakashi for a moment, but made sense in the broad picture—the barrier eliminated the need for guards. If his suspicions about Minoru were true, as well, then he did not need guards to know what was happening within the village. He was certain that he had already been detected, but for some reason he was allowed to pass unhindered through the defenses and make his way toward the leader's headquarters. Kakashi was impressed by the size and scope of the village; numerous homes, huts, and more industrial types of buildings littered the tree-covered landscape. He passed through the massive training field with more than twenty-five individual rings for different classes, staying high among the branches and moving in complete silence. From his perch, he spotted the unassuming doorway that led to Minoru's bizarre chamber. From there, it was an unknown factor. Something truly terrible could be lying in wait beyond that door, but the only way to find out was to see it for himself.

He paused while overlooking Minoru's door, clicking the volume knob on his headset in an attempt to contact his partner. "Tenzo, can you hear me?" The answer was nothing but static. He tried again, then one more time, but as he feared, there was no signal to catch. He was on his own, save for the seeds planted in his gut. He couldn't feel them, but he knew they were present—judging by what Tenzo said about Kaine's arrival, Minoru would see them, too. It might dampen the mood if foul play is suspected from the start. It was a risk worth taking, given the alternative—if things went sour, he needed a man on the outside to know about it, and there was no man he trusted more than Tenzo.

Flying blind, he hopped down from his perch, and then he heard a rustling from the bushes beside his landing. With a kunai in hand, he turned to face the threat, but it was nothing more than a stray gust of wind. Undeterred by the silence of the village, Kakashi stepped up to Minoru's door and turned the knob—surprisingly, it was unlocked, and he swung it open easily. He entered into a modest waiting room, made of wooden planks with a lantern hanging overhead that had been blown out for the night. Most of the village must have been sleeping. It was far from the first time that Kakashi had effortlessly infiltrated an enemy village, but it was certainly the least difficult intrusion he had ever enacted. It had all the aromas of an obvious trap, but he was confident in himself. Kaine was talented, but he was hardly a worthy opponent for a ninja of Kakashi's caliber—if a fight broke out, he knew he could escape from ninjas of that village's ability. They were still young, and their training methods were imperfect.

From the dry waiting room, Kakashi could see another door—the last door from Tenzo's vision of Kaine's journey. Minoru was lying somewhere behind it. With a calm and collected hand, Kakashi put his fingerless glove to the handle and turned it. Once again, there was no lock, so he opened the thick steel door with a shove of his arm, looking into the darkness beyond without the aid of his Sharingan. His vision was outstanding, and even without the powerful focus of Obito's eye, he could see a ways into the black. He saw far enough to spot Minoru's attempted ambush long before it became necessary to avoid it.

The blind man's pointed fingers came within inches of Kakashi's face, but they were dodged. Another strike came to follow it, and the blindfolded male grunted with effort. It was a ferocious assault, with speed that Kakashi had rarely seen, but it was not enough. The bloodlusted Minoru was vastly superior to his student, Kaine, but not a true threat to Kakashi Hatake—not as he was. Kakashi could see through the weaknesses of his wild assault without hesitation, and by the fifth open-palmed strike attempt, Minoru's wrist was captured by Kakashi's hand, and held high out of the way.

Next came a Lightning Blade, which crackled in the darkness on Kakashi's free hand until it was swallowed up by Minoru's chest. The man in a blue robe was impaled through the heart, roughly coughing as viscous blood seeped out of his mouth, but then he vanished into an empty puff of smoke. It had been nothing more than a clone, just as it was a clone the last time they met. Kakashi brought his hands down, and having bypassed the initial layer of defense, he stepped further into the steel prison. He spoke with an echo into the depths. "I wonder, Minoru...how long has it been since you fought with your own body? Ten years—fifteen? How long have you kept yourself bottled up in this abyss?"

"As long as it has taken, Kakashi Hatake," came a voice far beyond the threshold of Kakashi's night vision. The chamber seemed to stretch on for a mile or more, and along the walls, Kakashi could make out various door frames, sealed shut for years. "This prison is a tomb," Minoru's true voice continued. It sounded the same as his clone, albeit with a bit more huskiness and weary weight. "Have you come to die here?"

"I don't intend to die, Minoru—I've come to ask you what you hoped to accomplish by burning that village to the ground. Kaine Hamasaki tells me that you call this place the Village Hidden by Truth—does that mean I can expect an honest answer out of you?" Kakashi was unfazed by the attempted ambush; the clone had hardly put up a fight, even compared to the time he faced it in the woods. He felt like he was being tested.

"I will not lie to you, Kakashi Hatake," came the labored response as it echoed from surface to surface. "However, do forgive me if I am not in the shape you expect me to be in," he said at last.

"I saw one of your clones eliminate six teams worth of trained shinobi. Your condition hardly seems important," Kakashi said back, walking through the chamber and looking to either side. More doors lined each wall. They would have been invisible to most within the blackness, but Kakashi was exceptional in many ways. He adapted to the dark instantaneously. "More importantly, I took careful notice of _how_ you eliminated them. This Sharingan of mine, it sees many things...but perhaps not quite as much as your exceptional gift, hmm?"

"What would a liar like you know about my gift?" Minoru said back. The source of his voice was getting closer as Kakashi traveled, rapidly approaching the back wall of the enormous hallway. It truly did resemble a prison of some sort, but its origins were unclear. Kakashi had never seen anything quite like it before, nor had he heard of such an institution in that region.

"I know more than just your gift, Minoru—I know your name. I know who you used to be before all of this madness overtook you." Kakashi was close, now. He could see the exhaustion-crippled form of Minoru's true self hunched over in a throne-like chair. He was concentrating hard—most likely he was holding up the barrier that protected the village. "And I want to know more than that," Kakashi said as he came to a stop.

The true body was a mess. His hair was dirty and flayed about, and his clothing was tattered around his arms and near his feet. His head and eyes were still wrapped, and his hands were perpetually formed into a hand-sign that Kakashi had never seen. No doubt, the sign was a function to maintain the barrier—the once-intimidating Minoru now looked emaciated and completely worn down. "It seems you have me at your mercy. What would you like to know, then?" Minoru asked, smirking below the up-curved hem of his mask.

"How did it come to this? Why did you abandon the Leaf during the war?" Kakashi asked, sitting down on his knees in front of the strenuously occupied man with loose, begrudging respect.

"It was not I who abandoned them, but they who _betrayed me_. I do not know what history has written about me, Kakashi Hatake, but it is a lie. My life ended the moment I trusted the Leaf for aid—it became not a life, but rather a singular quest for revenge; an existence with no joy or hope of fulfillment. Even _when_ I finally kill you, and every single one of your people...even when the quest is finished...I will not be satisfied. Nothing can replace those who were lost." Minoru was trembling as he spoke. Days—perhaps weeks—of constantly maintaining the gargantuan barrier had left him drained, and Kakashi could see that he had very little left. "My people are nearly starving; my ability to uphold the barrier is nearing its limit. If you have come to kill me, then you should know that my will is what keeps those people outside free and alive. Mamban and his army of slaves would turn them all into soulless puppets."

"What happened in the village, Minoru—the one that was burned to ash, with its people callously slaughtered? When I arrived, their bodies were lying just as they fell, and I saw the message you left." Kakashi was taking deep breaths, trying to maintain a stable tone despite rising anger. The air in the steel prison was putrid and old. The door he had entered through was nothing more than a speck of light far behind him, anymore.

"Mamban is what happened, Kakashi—the tyranny of the Leaf. He is a representative of the worst of your kind; he is a liar, a thief, a slaver, and a murderer. I left no message, and I burned no village; he must have done it in an attempt to turn your ire toward me. Mamban and I...we were friends, once. We fought together. He understood me like I understood him, and for a time we expected to die together—perhaps we may, yet." Minoru coughed, then his dry, cracked lips turned to a smirk. "I was born a fool. I am not strong enough to be the leader of these people...just look at what I have become."

Kakashi did look, and he looked long and hard. "When I look at you, I see a man who is struggling with his entire heart to keep his people safe from the perceived cruelty of the world around them." Kakashi stood up. "I see a man with misguided convictions, and a poisonous personal truth." He began ascending the rust-colored steps that led to the top of Minoru's raised platform. The 'throne' was little more than a wrought-iron slab fused to another and built into the wall. "I see a man who would die for his people, but also a man who would allow them to lose their innocence for the sake of revenge." Kakashi reached his hand forward, and Minoru couldn't afford to undo his sign to stop it. "I see a man who once lost everything, and desperately tried to get it back." Kakashi tucked his fingers under the mask on Minoru's face despite his feeble leaning away, and then slowly began to peel it up. "I see a man who doesn't know what to do anymore—a man who is in over his head with nowhere to turn." He looked upon Minoru's unmasked face, and what stared furiously back up at him was not the gaze of a blind man at all. "I see a man who is a traitor, and a hypocrite." It was a face that had once been innocent and full of hope, a face that was perfectly capable of sight—in fact, it was capable of sight beyond that of any other eye. Within Minoru's eye sockets laid a pair of milky-white Byakugan, and Kakashi was not at all surprised to see them.

"I see a man...who was once a boy named Susumu Hyuga."


	16. It Stemmed From a Lie

**It's time again!**

* * *

As Kakashi stood there with Minoru's removed mask dangling from one finger, he stared down at the face of lost innocence—rage and exhaustion had prematurely ruined the rogue ninja's features behind the black band. The thick, throbbing veins that circulated the chakra to his Byakugan were crackled like spiderwebs and seemed ready to crumble away. The man once called Susumu was breathing with great pain, but he still took the effort to gaze directly to Kakashi's face. His eyes could see everything all at once, and yet he focused intensely on the single being standing in his path. "So you know the name of a dead boy," Minoru started. "It does you no good."

Kakashi shook his head, dropping the black cloth to the ground. Along with the head wrap fell Minoru's head protector; the intricately carved heart with the various flourishes clanged onto the steel floor with a sound like bouncing tin. "It does_ nobody_ any good, Susumu," Kakashi answered, sighing with very mild frustration. "You may not understand the reality of what you've done to this village. You have clearly discarded yourself and been reborn as some twisted idea, rather than continue life as a a mere man—but how will your people respond to this truth? Your insistence on becoming something transcendent has placed within them an idea that you are superior to them. Kaine Hamasaki even told me that you could dismantle a man without ever touching him; is there any truth to that claim?"

The chamber was even more dry than the air outside, and as it stretched deeper and deeper into nothingness to finally reach the back wall of Minoru's throne, the humidity had become zero. Susumu smirked, his lips splitting apart from the lack of wetness. "As much truth as a claim about a god has ever contained, Kakashi Hatake," he said while licking his mouth. It did little good to try to nourish his lips—even his tongue was dried out by then.

"You're a husk, not a god," Kakashi answered, folding his hands into his pockets. The spent body in front of him was no threat to him, and he found himself wondering why he was allowed to pass through the barrier. His pile of suspicions had been proven to be entirely true—even when he first encountered the clone in the forest, Kakashi had considered the idea that the Byakugan was among the only explanations for Minoru's bizarre omniscience. A skilled user of the great eye could see for miles in every direction—Susumu _must_ have known that night who knocked on the barrier's edge, so why allow the intruder into the village at all—why, especially, allow him to find its leader in such a state? "I don't know what game you're playing here, but as long as I'm in front of you, I want to know what drove you to this. You seemed like such a kind young man in your file; you went out of your way to help others, your photo was smiling brightly," Kakashi mused, recalling the cheeky grin from the folder.

"A photo is but a moment in time—and time is ever-changing. The photograph never morphed to reflect the hardships that came afterward. Forever, that young form of Susumu Hyuga will be smiling in blissful ignorance of his future. Were I to be given the chance to dive into that little square of happiness and return to my life as it once was, I would take that opportunity without a single thought. Childhood was a dreamland of ambition and hope, but I have since awoken into a true nightmare." Susumu heaved, his chest rising hard with every breath. Kakashi could swear that he heard rattling bones behind each movement, though it was subtle and a bit creaky. It could have also been the boxy metal encasing around them groaning with age.

The scene didn't add up, but Kakashi's nagging concerns took a back seat to his primary mission—he had a lot of questions to ask the so-called human embodiment of truth. The mastermind's first great lie—his true name and the nature of his blindness—had already been uncovered. What else lurked beneath? "Tell me, Susumu," Kakashi restated. "What happened to you during the war?"

"_Never call me by that name!_" he snapped in response. "My eyes may be keen, but your seeing beneath the veil has not changed what I am. The look of my face and the shine of my eyes do not matter—what matters is that I _will_ bring truth to the liars of the Leaf," His passion was burning, and the effort of his powerful voice forced a cough out of his debilitated lungs.

"What is your truth, then? How will you educate us to change our ways?" Kakashi asked, humoring the egomaniac without a single change in tone. Thus far, he was unimpressed by what he saw in front of him. Even still, he never let his guard down.

"Your ways cannot be changed, Kakashi," Minoru answered. "The answer to peace is to cleanse the lies from the world and replace them with the truth. When I died, I became something _more_—the judgment of truth is my responsibility, and it is mine alone," he said, his hands shivering with effort as he channeled a constant barrier around his territory. "I will personally slay your leadership, your teachers, your students...your civilians, and certainly their children. They will bleed upon the liars' streets and their final breaths will be filled with the scent of their own pompousness," he ranted, thrashing his head roughly from side to side, whipping his lengthy hair around behind his shoulders.

"Bold words, coming from a man in such a state. Why should I leave you alive after hearing something like that? Those liars...those petty fools who you have so much disdain for...they are my family. I fight for them—and I fight _hard _to protect them. You're a threat, Susumu. I'd be justified in ending your madman's-dreams here and now," Kakashi had a coldness in his voice, a frigid flow that matched the howling winds whistling faintly from the outside.

"How fitting for you, Kakashi Hatake. I am just another mission to you, isn't that right? You're here to kill me; to preserve the precious balance of power in the Land of Fire. As I told you when we met—I see your truth. You live for the killing—you enjoy the sensation of sliding your hand through a beating heart and flaying it into a dozen dead, wet slices between your fingers..." Minoru said, leaning his neck to look down upon his own chest with the pearly white focus of his eyes. His clone had been easily dispatched, and its memories were given to him. "I felt the ferocity of your strike—I felt the skill, the willingness to murder. In your heart beats a cold, unrestrained urge to end lives."

Kakashi was still unfettered by the man's attempted manipulation. "I do what must be done, and no more than that. You've attacked me, you've threatened my people, and you've had the arrogance to call yourself the truth while lying to your own flock. I think the right call would be to kill you now and face this 'Mamban' on my own—certainly, _you_ should not be allowed to lead this village."

"Because I disagree with your ideals?" Minoru challenged, laughing huskily. "How very Leaf-like of you, young Hatake."

"Because you've become a dangerous, evil man, Susumu." Kakashi replied calmly. His hands were still pocketed, his stance still relaxed, cocked slightly at his shoulders to run an uneven slope from one side to the other. "Your people frankly deserve better."

"I am the only one who can protect them from the enemies out there. Tell me—who will stop those beasts from storming this village and enslaving its people, should I happen to die here, tonight? Will it be you, Kakashi?" Minoru laughed again, his rough cackle filling the empty darkness with echoes. As they reached the end of their life, those echoes became the hauntingly carefree laughter of a child. "You and yours would rather see us dead than free. Our independence has frightened you; I see the fear inside of your spirit. As you think of your inevitable future, your heart beats faster and your blood runs hotter. You fear me because you know I speak _pure truth_," he boasted, laying it on extra thick. Despite his narrow physical form, his mind seemed to be as bloated and self-serving as could be.

"Tell me what this place really is," Kakashi started. He nearly called the man Susumu again, but in the interests of squeezing out some information, he played to the ruse. "I want to know how this village began—how you became Minoru," he turned his back to the dusty village head and descended the half-dozen steps to reach the floor again. In truth, Kakashi and Susumu were nearly identical in age, and yet the latter had become much, much older by appearance.

"It stemmed from a single, colossal lie, which then turned into a rather nasty habit; the people who were once my superiors had suddenly developed an allergy to the truth," Minoru began, relaxing somewhat as Kakashi stepped down. His trembling frame had calmed, his hands soothingly still by contrast to how they had been a moment earlier. "But before that—before the lie was told—there was an endless war..."

* * *

**The Third Shinobi World War:**

The fighting had been intense, and each of the Five Great Nations had been involved in some fashion. The Land of Fire seemed to be at the center of it all, as always. Geographically, they had the largest border and the most enemies on all sides with easy access to their lands. Their great size was not quite a crippling vulnerability, but only because of the extraordinary strength of their Hidden Village—The Village Hidden in the Leaves boasted extremely powerful combatants, young and old. One of those young combatants with vast potential, one who proudly wielded a genetic treasure of the Leaf, was named Susumu Hyuga.

Susumu was barely more than a teenager, but he was counted among the most celebrated members of his clan. He attained the rank of Chunin in recognition of his above-average skills, and then, due in part to the dwindling war power of the Leaf, he was given his own squad of younger ninjas to lead during the conflict. He was working on a joint operation near the border of the Land of Water to cut off their methods of filtering reinforcements into the Land of Fire. Susumu's squad consisted of three bright-eyed young recruits, boys a bit less aged and mature than Susumu himself. Sava, Lakio, and Kanagi were their names.

Their four-man team was working with the team of another young prodigy, though that one had no prestigious family name to harken back to. The two teams had ventured out on shared assignments before, and this one was expected to be no different. It was a routine scouting mission with an addendum to exterminate any enemy threats that might have been discovered. Susumu was leading the excursion, putting his exemplary skill with his inherited Byakugan to good use, spotting shortcuts and alerting his team to potential ambushes.

Along the way, the gifted Hyuga saw a peculiar hunk of wood and debris toward the far end of his vision radius, and upon noticing it, he held his hand up in a fist to signal his followers to stop. "Hold up; we need to change direction," he whispered, facing forward and focusing his eyes more directly upon the structure. It resembled an antique schoolhouse of some kind, with a bell tower and a single large room. It was in complete shambles, likely eaten by time and weather. The peculiarity that forced Susumu to stop was the faint traces of chakra littering the floor and hidden under piles of debris—signs of life. Or perhaps traps. He would know more when he got closer.

"That's not what our mission says, Susumu," came the voice of his comrade, the second leader who had been attached under Susumu's unit. "We should stick to our orders."

"I know, I know; we won't ignore the mission, but I have a bad feeling about this. We need to get closer and investigate. Think of it as a well-intentioned detour," Susumu was always understanding the ideas of others; his voice held true compassion even as he countered his fellow's argument. Their six subordinates knew better than to interrupt as the two bantered back and forth.

"Well-intentioned, nothing! Is this just another one of your excuses to get away from the fighting?" The other youth was unremarkable in appearance. His face was a slight bit rounded and his eyes were thinly drawn onto his face. He looked a bit like a beige dinner plate dotted with a few black beans to add features. His hair was short and dark and his body was built athletically. "Look, our people need us to carry this mission out, and I think we should do that without delay."

Susumu answered with patience. "We will complete the mission, but I am going to examine these ruins, first. For all we know, the faint chakra signatures I can see are the indication of an enemy squadron. It's located at the edge of my sight; if they're using it as a base, I won't be able to see them until we've gotten much closer." They had all stopped and were hanging onto thick, wet branches. It had been raining, and the lush green leaves gave the air a pleasant aroma. As the droplets fell faster and thicker, it all smelled just like it did at home; the waters had washed away the aromas of blasting powder, blood and burnt skin. For a fleeting moment, peace seemed like a real and possible thing.

"I think we should keep going and circle back later," the opposing leader suggested. "It'll satisfy your curiosity and we'll still be following our orders."

"No time," Susumu said simply. "We can't risk allowing them to move on. I didn't want to pull rank on you, initially, but I _was_ given command over this entire eight-man unit. I can't rightly _force_ you to come with me, but my team and I are going to check out this structure—and for right now, _my_ team includes _your_ team."

"Bah, I guess I can't let you get yourself killed without me, and still sleep at night...Don't forget, though; when the insubordination hearing is held, I was the one who wanted to keep on with the mission." He looked over at all the lesser soldiers. "You all heard it," he added, winking with good spirit.

Satisfied, Susumu nodded and they all continued as one group. Through the trees and over the ravines, they got closer to the suspicious building until the gifted Hyuga could better discern what was inside. As he tried to focus more completely, his concentration was disrupted by the sight of enemies closing in from several directions. "A trap!" Susumu exclaimed, giving out a healthy warning. "They're coming right for us. We have a minute—maybe two. Set yourselves up."

The crew scattered to various vantage points, concealing themselves inside of bushes, branches and mud. In the dim, rainy evening, it was difficult for onlookers to spot them. Their approach had likely been detected by a trip wire; perhaps a paper-thin chakra detection barrier. Susumu was wonderfully developed in the area of his Byakugan, but he often missed the bigger picture when he focused on smaller objects—the schoolhouse was eating at him, and he inadvertently led his people to a trap for his lack of attention.

Fortunately for efficiency's sake, Susumu's fellow Chunin leader kept his mouth shut about the mistake and sprung into action like the others. The mission came first—and truthfully, the ambush was proof that Susumu must have been onto something. "Fan out, set a few paper bombs, and wait for the signal," Susumu ordered, his voice muffled beyond a certain point by the roar of rainfall and the periodic boom of thunder. The water from the rain would make the paper bombs slower to activate, but they were made to work in any condition give or take.

"What kind of enemies are we dealing with?" Susumu's partner asked him as they hid near one another, high aloft in the trees. The Byakugan was being used extensively to find and study the enemies and their approach.

"Hidden Mist headbands; twelve incoming that I can see...three teams against the two of ours." Susumu focused harder. "We tripped a chakra string a while back; I can see a few more of them set up around us. I can't tell you exactly where it was, but that's where they will likely check first," he explained to his partner, then raised his hand and made a sign. Essentially, the order was to watch and wait, and all the others saw him make it.

Time passed quickly, and with a flash of ominous lightning, the enemies had arrived. They were systematically searching the trees and checking their chakra-fueled traps. It would only be a moment or two before the paper bombs were seen. The window of opportunity was stressfully narrow—the enemies had to be close enough to the detonation to catch the force of the blast, but also distant enough to remain unaware of the trap. A trained ninja could outrun the burst of explosive material with little more than a razor's edge worth of warning. Precious seconds passed, and accounting for the rain, Susumu gave a signal. The invisible wires attached to the bombs were pulled in unison, and as the paper turned to violent flame, a few of the enemies were caught in the explosion. Three of them did not get back up.

The odds were shifted, becoming eight against nine. Susumu's squad was still at a numerical disadvantage, but the panic stirred by the blasts of flame and scattered tree bark managed to leave an opening in the enemy's defenses. As the dust filled the sky, only to be beaten back to the ground by the pelting rain, Susumu stood up and gave another nonverbal signal. He and his partner rushed in together, each taking the nearest opponent from behind with silent kunai through the base of the skull. With a bone crunch that coincided with the arrival of a blast of thunder, they both released their targets in unison and moved to the next. The gifted team leader used his vast sight to call out locations and attacks incoming, keeping his team coordinated and perfectly efficient.

The six lesser-ranked teammates also pulled some of their weight, though they worked together to kill only half of their own number. Susumu and his companion slew the others, until only one was left. The single survivor had fled, seeking refuge beneath the thick coverage of a fallen tree. He was furiously digging himself into the mud, hoping to conceal himself and escape the enemies' interest. The Byakugan was a nightmare for men like him—Susumu was upon him from behind, charging his own hand with wind chakra and slicing directly through the soaking wet tree trunk. As the coward was revealed, Susumu grasped him by the rear of his shirt. His round-headed partner helped to extract the opponent from the depths of the mud, and then propped him up against a nearby tree that had been rent in half by an explosive bomb.

Susumu took over from there, slamming their captive against the tree and hoisting him up with both hands on the front of his collar. "How many others?" Susumu asked directly, looking through the man's body to determine his honesty. The rhythms and pulses of the human body were a natural means of lie detection; Susumu had taught himself the trick over the course of several years, and it came in handy when gauging an enemy's willingness to cooperate.

"N-no others," the Mist shinobi said with a mild panic in his voice. The bloody mist did not often produce cowards, but even the most sure-fire methods often failed to surpass a ninety percent success rate. Survivors could be cowards as well. "We're on a mission to capture high potential targets...targets like you," the writhing man said, fessing up to every detail. The Byakugan was a highly-sought prize, and Susumu had just proven its usefulness in a combat situation. Twelve against eight, and the twelve were scattered like dust to the wind.

As the weather howled and fought against itself, healthy leaves were plucked from their branches by the force and turned into spiraling casualties. Susumu allowed the man to prattle on about battle plans, ranking structure, and more—a coward among cowards, certainly. He spilled his guts, and then Susumu released his grip on the traitor's shirt, letting him down. The captive and captor were both young—all of the nations and their villages had been running low on able-bodied men since the war had begun to drag on. Susumu was as tall as his subject, though the captive was older by a handful of years.

"You can go," Susumu said at last. The grateful youth nodded, and ran off in a direction away from Susumu.

"The hell he can," came the voice of Susumu's less-merciful partner, and a moment later, the sound of slicing flesh and pouring blood joined with the chorus of the downpour. Susumu had momentarily deactivated his Byakugan, and the sound took him by surprise as he pivoted on his heel to behold the poor victim being sliced open across the gut and spilled all over the ground as he fell shuddering, becoming still and lifeless before he reached the puddle at his feet. A sick splash raised the body count to twelve—all the deaths were of enemies, yet one of them sickened Susumu deeply.

"That was unnecessary," the Hyuga said with a bite in his voice. "He told us everything he knew. He was truthful."

"Exactly...and if he told us everything about his_ friends_, what do you think he'd tell to his friends about _us_?Damn, you may be skilled, but you're sometimes depressingly naïve." The pie-faced male was wiping his kunai on the surface of a wet leaf while he spoke, and then he sheathed its dripping wet steel along his thigh. "Think, Susumu—you can't always show mercy just because somebody cooperates."

"I made a decision, and you should have respected it," came the hushed reply. Susumu was upset, but he couldn't deny the validity of his counterpart's actions.

"Maybe next time," the unnamed shinobi said with a grunt, kicking the dead body at his feet before moving on. "Now, where are those ruins of yours?"

A moment of silence preceeded the answer, but Susumu cleared his head and returned to the task at hand. "This way," he guided, pointing his hand with all the fingers extended. After gathering up their subordinates and checking them for injuries, they were an eight-man-mob on the move once again.

Despite the failed ambush, the schoolhouse had not changed—there were still numerous blobs of chakra lining the floor. They were faint and unmoving—probably another set up for a trap. This time, they would be that much more prepared when it was sprung. Susumu silently admitted that his partner made the correct call; if the ambushers had been warned of their approach, they may have been placed into heavy danger.

Closer and closer they drew to the dilapidated old building, with Susumu keeping his sight on the broader picture. After their first trap, falling for a second would be inexcusable. When the trees broke and the decimated old wooden shelter was in the plain view of the whole team, the rain had begun to form gentle rivers at the base of the hill. The moderately sized building looked like a run-down fortress, complete with its own improvised moat, carved by nature itself. Susumu focused, and then he tilted his head. His Leaf headband slanted down his forehead, bogged down by the weight of water.

"They aren't enemies," Susumu said confidently, but with a hint of being puzzled. "But there are dozens of them in there."

"Well, who are they?" His partner chimed in.

"They're...kids. Kids no older than academy students..." Susumu rushed through the wind and stinging water to enter through the slackened doorway. The frame was sturdy but the wooden slab that should have hinged open and closed was terribly misaligned. The darkness of the room was no deterrent to the Byakugan as he did a scan. Forty three children, all shivering, cold, and starving. "Our mission is going to have a wait," Susumu said as his ally caught up to him. The six rookies were more cautious, stepping in as if they expected another trap. The combat high had yet to wear off of them from the ambush.

"We're not postponing our mission for a handful of starving kids," the merciless one said without shame. Whimpers could be heard from various corners of the ruined classroom; desks and chairs were blown all about, and the roof had partially collapsed to create a pile of rubble in the far left corner from the doorway. "Leave them some food if you insist, but don't go asking me for rations later on if you run out."

"Speaking clearly, we _are_ going to protect these children." There was no room for argument against Susumu's tone. "Winning this war means nothing if the generation behind us no longer exists as a result. There will be no argument on this matter."

Big-head pursed his lips, looking frustrated in the dark. Some of the kids were crying, expecting the worst from the eight armed intruders. He groaned in frustration and then stomped the ground once, cracking a floorboard. "Fine, have it your way—_again_. I don't have the energy to argue with you when you get like this."

"Good," Susumu answered, smiling softly. He reached into his leaf-green vest, popping open a pouch and producing a few food pills. He brought out a kunai and laid out a few pills on a cloth against the floor, slicing the balls into smaller pieces. "Hey, you guys can come out; I've got food here," Susumu announced.

"I'll go and keep watch outside," his partner said, deflated. He walked out with his arms crossed in irritation, his face looking like that of a brat who had just been told 'no' a bit more harshly than he was accustomed to. Perhaps that was exactly what he was. A few of the children responded positively to Susumu's offer, one by one crawling out from rubble dressed in rags, or nothing at all. It was a dismal sight, and most of them were too young to speak.

"T-thanks, mister," said one young boy who was missing several teeth and had a single strip of cloth dangling around his waist. He was shivering and soaking wet, the poor constitution of the building letting a great deal of wind and water through the cracks. The boy started to eat a small fragment of the food pill, but then he gagged. "Blegh! What's this s'post ta be?"

Susumu chuckled warmly, and a couple of his troops cracked smiles despite the stress. "It's yucky, I know, but it's very good for you. Bring some to everybody you know around here." Susumu was analyzing the place—a few of the children left no imprint in his vision. They had no chakra; they had already starved. The idea made him frown, but he felt hope when he saw how many yet survived. The young boy nodded with his half-toothed grin and took up the bundle of shredded rations, carting them around to the timid young folks.

"Lakio," Susumu called out.

The lanky, short young man answered. "Yes, sir?"

"You're fast and sneaky; I need you to carry a message to the nearest command outpost. Tell them that we've found children in dire need of assistance; tell them to the best of your ability where we are. Don't return unless you've brought help—don't take no for an answer." Susumu barked out orders, then turned to the remaining five. "And you...when this rain stops, we need to dig seven..." he trailed off, noticing that the children were occupied all at once, huddled around the first food they had seen in weeks. "Seven graves," he choked out, closing his eyes.

"Yessir," Sava answered, running his own eyes along the small crowd. "Seven..." he said, trailing off as well. They had endured the reality of war for many months...or had it been years? The sorrow and fear had all become a numbing agent, keeping them blissfully unaware of the true cost of their battles. It was easy to grieve for a fallen comrade, but what was really lost in that conflict was the innocence of children. The 'soldiers' who followed the orders of the teenaged Susumu were barely older than the starving kids, yet they had long since forgotten what it was like to be cold and helpless.

Sava spoke up again. "Sir, I...I think we made the right call, even if _he_ disagrees," he said, looking toward the half-cocked door and out toward the silhouette of the other team's leader. In all of the months that they had routinely worked with the other leader, neither he nor his team had shared names with Susumu or his group. It was a strange condition to work with, but they were an effective team—combined, the two teams were nigh unstoppable. They had slain dozens of enemy squads and taken numerous valuable prisoners for their intel. Their joint operations were among the highest in overall effectiveness, even if hiccups inevitably arose due to inexperience or personal disputes.

Lakio had been contemplating the order given to him. "Sir...what if I'm caught in one of the enemy's traps?"

"That's why I'm sending you. I trust you to either avoid them, or escape if you're discovered. Don't let me down, okay?" Susumu smiled at his most talented troop; at least he was the most talented when it came to message delivery and quick recon missions.

"Right. I'll do whatever it takes to bring help," he promised, then saluted. "I'll leave now, under cover of this rain. I can make good time and be back with a full platoon by tomorrow morning."

"Perfect," Susumu nodded. Lakio hopped on both feet to warm up, then quickly turned with his arms held out to either side, building up speed as he ran free of the run down schoolhouse and disappeared beyond the treeline. "Let's hope we last until tomorrow, then," Susumu said more quietly. His people would be fine; there were enough food pills to feed his team for nearly a month. The issue arose when the children were factored in. Forty three kids would take a lot more to feed than eight trained ninja. He couldn't allow them to starve, and so Susumu opted not to eat.

As the night grew darkest and the rain began to thin, Susumu set himself to the task of finding rags and bandages in the rubble of the demolished school, providing clothing for the children who had none. There was little to be found, so instead, he took his own sleeves and the lower reaches of his pants, slicing them up into strips and at least fashioning small sashes for the neediest of the youngsters. He gave all that he could; he ate nothing, wore very little, and never slept. His anonymous partner did his diligence as well, keeping a close watch on their surroundings even in the violent weather.

Lakio returned the next day with bad news. "They turned me away," he said while panting. He had run as quickly as he could to deliver the message, knowing that time was precious. "They said," a gasp of air, "That they would send help within the next three days."

"That's not good enough," Susumu quipped, narrowing his eyes and setting his hand beneath Lakio's chin. "Eat something. You've done what you can; I suppose we just need to last for three days. It shouldn't be too terribly difficult."

"Especially not with this," Lakio answered with a self-satisfied grin. From behind his back, he pulled out a pack that was stuffed full of food pills. "They couldn't get a team to help transport all the kids, but they sent this as a sort of promise. They'll be here; I know it."

Susumu had a broad grin, by then. It was enough food to keep the children nourished for a month and more. They may have hated the taste of food pills—truthfully, Susumu didn't like them very much himself—but they would stomach enough to stay relatively healthy. "That's fantastic, Lakio! I knew you were the man for the job," the Hyuga said with an enthusiastic pat on his soldier's back.

Days passed, and no help arrived. Susumu had sent Lakio again to confirm the incoming assistance. The eight of them could not have possibly transported a complete horde of children through the unforgiving woods by themselves. It would take at least three times their number to ensure total security. Had they all been trained as ninjas, the issue would have been moot—with the underdeveloped and underfed kids in fragile shape, however, many would not make the journey without extra assistance. That wasn't even mentioning the threat of more traps and combat. They were too far away from their nearest base.

When Lakio returned from his second trip, he bore bad news. "It was empty—the camp was totally deserted."

Susumu blinked, "What do you mean it was empty?"

The unnamed squadron's secondary leader came in from the outside, having been listening in. "It means we've been lied to, and abandoned. We need to cut our losses and get out right now. We've spent too much time dawdling—they've probably already written us off as dead."

"We aren't leaving the children." Susumu answered.

"That's on you, then. I'm not going to stay in this place until we're discovered by the enemy."

Lakio grumbled. "The bastards lied to me."

"We don't know if it was a lie, Lakio," Susumu chimed in, ever the reasonable thinker. "They may have been attacked and forced to abandon the camp."

"If that's the case, then what hope do we have in a place like this?" round-head spoke, thinking rationally. "We're days away from the camp, even without the kids. Not everybody's as fast as Lakio is. We're good, but we're not going to stand up to a concentrated attack. If they catch us here wearing Leaf headbands, we're as good as dead."

"So be it," Susumu said calmly. "If I am to die wearing the symbol of the Leaf, then that is what I will do. I refuse to abandon somebody who truly needs me. All of these kids would be dead without us," Susumu said as he contemplatively looked out toward the slope of the hill, carved out beyond one of the broken windows built into the school. Their people had dug out seven graves...but had occasion to open up an eighth the night after. Sickness had taken one more.

"Your loyalty is impressive, and maybe a little scary; just what do they feed you back home, Susumu?" The jab was good-humored, but it was clear that Susumu's fellow team leader had fundamentally disagreed with the way things were going.

"We only need to wait. They'll come back for us," Lakio said out. "We don't abandon our own. We never will."

"Don't be as naïve as Susumu, here."

"He's right, though" Sava said from the far corner. He had been trying to keep the kids entertained, but they were all drifting into naps. "They'll come back for us. Naive or not, we're valuable—Susumu's got the Byakugan. They won't let him fall into enemy hands...Just hold on."

* * *

**Two Months Later:**

The food had run out, and the children were desperate. Their bellies growled and their eyes leaked salty tears in abundance each night as they struggled. Not all of them made it, but Susumu did everything he could to keep them healthy and in high spirits. They resorted to eating leaves and grass, but the fronds were woefully inadequate, other than as a means to keep their jaws occupied. Anything was better than the quivering fear of having nothing to put in one's mouth.

As the moon rose and vanished, the sun beat down upon their heads through the deteriorating wood, and the weather ripped new holes in the walls, Susumu began to lose hope of ever being rescued. His partner had felt that way all along, but through some undetermined sense of commitment, he stuck with his combat buddy and endured the hunger and despair. Susumu had seen the surrounding area crawl with Mist ninjas; there was no safe haven beyond the schoolhouse. By some miracle, they were never discovered, until a group of cloaked individuals approached from the front.

Susumu had seen them coming, but he had noticed that several of them were wearing Leaf headbands. They must have finally been there to rescue the stranded ninjas from their fate. Lakio was the first one to greet them, stepping out from the school with a gleam in his eyes. "You finally came back for us? I'll tell you, we were really starting to worry."

The man in front had a stern, vicious face. He was aging terribly and his face was sagged. Lines ran all along the surfaces of his cheeks and followed his jaw in a deep crease. His head was wrapped in bandages, and his right eye was fully covered by the white wrappings. To his right was a man of fully white flesh, and he was truly unsettling to behold. His skin seemed like it would be slimy to the touch, but scaly at the same time; his eyes looked like a cat's—no, more like a snake's. He had fangs like one, too. The rest of the group had masks on, and they were dressed in matching black trench coats with four silvery buttons arranged in a square along the front, holding the leaves of fabric together.

"We've come to retrieve you, indeed," spoke the pale, sickly-looking man with the devious yellow eyes. There were peculiar streaks of purple framing the tops of his eyelids and followed down to the bridge of his nose. His cheek bones were sunken and gaunt; he could have been mistaken for a bleached skeleton. "Which of you is the Hyuga boy?"

Susumu heard his family name called up, and he stepped out from the church. "It's me. I'm Susumu Hyuga, and I'm in charge of this squad." He walked out with confidence, dressed in his chunin vest. His clothing had become tattered, having been given very few opportunities to change out of it. "I can't tell you how happy we are to see friendly faces, sir," Susumu said with a respectful bow.

"The Leaf's camps have been wiped out of this region, but we have a specially made hideout for poor, lost souls such as yourselves and your adopted family," the man with the bandages spoke up. He looked old, but he sounded even older. "We will take you there. We have copious supplies to feed and clothe you all. There are tasks that need doing, as well, so you will be expected to earn your place amongst us for the time being."

"We can do that," came the voice of Susumu's chunin partner. He gave a bow to mirror Susumu's respect, and although he had never exactly been happy about sticking around and witnessing the slow decay of a batch of refugee children, he was certainly glad to see a way out of the living hell. "We've lost several," he said, casting a glance toward the improvised graveyard. There were seventeen wooden stakes marking burials, all lined up in a haphazard row.

"A tragedy," the slick-voiced snake said with a cunning smirk. "We'll make _all_ the pain go away. Round up your little band, and we'll take you to a safe place..."

"Before that...who are you guys? I don't think we've met before." Susumu inquired, showing a relieved smile. His question was not an accusation, nor was it suspicious.

The elder with the bandages gave a curt bow of his head, and then gestured sweepingly toward the pale, sickening thing to his immediate right. "My name is Danzo Shimura, and this is my esteemed colleague...his name is Orochimaru, and he will be certain to take marvelous care of you all."

* * *

**Let me know what you think; the next update is coming soon. **


	17. Making Moves

**Thanks for reading!**

* * *

Kakashi knew what it meant for Orochomaru to have shown up, and as Minoru retold the story in slow detail, there was an ominous aura seeping into the air. It was invisible, but he felt the sorrow. Its weight tried to crush Kakashi's shoulders, but he remained steadfast. The story seemed to have hit a pause, and Kakashi spoke up. "So you've met Orochimaru. You're lucky to have survived his care." The Jonin knew what Orochimaru was famous for. He had seen the results of some of the experiments first hand, and had even seen his own student gripped by the cruelty of the white-fleshed sannin's manipulative ambitions.

"Susumu did not survive," the half-cripple replied, his ruined face seeming to become wet with the streak of a single tear. "The things that he endured were indescribable, Kakashi Hatake. He fought until his body gave out, and he cried until the water and salt had become emptiness. He hoped and prayed until the world had fallen silent...and then Susumu Hyuga died on an operating table as his body was ripped to pieces and rebuilt. When the sum of his parts took form again, when his hastily reconstructed body opened its eyes, the vision did not belong to Susumu any longer. It belonged to a creature of revenge and spite; a creature who chose to call himself Minoru—Truth."

"And that's who you are, now?" Kakashi completed the thought. "A monster who desires nothing but revenge?"

"I'm a monster which feeds upon other monsters," Minoru corrected. "I know that the reality of the Leaf is a nightmarish place. Kaine Hamasaki has infiltrated its walls on a number of occasions, and has told me of their atrocities. He has not once lied to me about them."

Kakashi's gaze was stern and unmoving, his single eye trying to sort through the shattered mirror dangling in front of him. He saw a man who was a boy, and yet it was also a man who had never existed. On file, Susumu's official cause of death was an explosive ambush by the Mist. His Byakugan was written off as 'destroyed beyond recovery' and his body was impossible to positively identify. The other members of his squad were relatively unknown, just a green bunch of kids who hardly warranted a footnote. Their disappearance was inconsequential to the overall war effort. "How can you be so sure that these atrocities are true?" Kakashi asked.

"Susumu is dead, but I have been cursed with his memories. I know of the pain he felt, and I have, through him, experienced the helplessness of being lied to. He was explicitly told that there would be safety. He was convinced that his people would be fed, clothed, cared for, and given shelter. Danzo Shimura is the exemplary liar of the Leaf, and so long as he lives, there will be no peace_—there_ _can_ _be no peace_. Every man, woman, and child who has come into contact with him must serve me or be slain! There is no room for negotiation!" Minoru was trembling with renewed rage. Seeing Kakashi there, dressed so arrogantly as a proud shinobi of the Leaf, was boiling the once-Hyuga's blood. The spiraling symbol of Konoha that adorned Kakashi's headband was staring into him, judging him like an accusing eye.

"You're a mad man, Minoru, but I know that you have endured a great deal of suffering to become who you are. You're long-set in your ways, so you probably won't believe me when I say that the Leaf is a genuine family. We take care of our own, and we would all lay down our lives for the generation to follow. We _have_ produced darkness—" Kakashi paused as he thought of Orochimaru, Danzo, Itachi...and Sasuke. "—but we have also produced shining beacons of light." Jiraiya, Minato, Tsunade, Sakura, Lee...and of course Naruto. They and many more appeared in his mind as true representations of what his home was truly standing for.

"And yet, even the light speaks lies—mirages that deceive dying men in the desert, frowns appearing as smiles by a trick of winking flame. One cannot trust the light as long as it shines too brightly to be scrutinized. Only one with blessed eyes can see through the steamy haze. You should know that as well as I, Kakashi. Did you not lose your father to the supposed _light of the Leaf?_" Minoru asked with a sting, once more trying to tug at his adversary's heart. All of the high ranks in the village knew the fate of Sakumo Hatake; it was an unsettling turn of events to a kindhearted child like Susumu, but for Minoru, it was abused as a source of emotional weakness, a tantalizing box to be opened up and toyed with. He was playing a dangerous game, having allowed Kakashi to enter. His personal gamble would pay off by the end of the night, one way or another.

"My father made a choice. As a child, I will admit that I was ashamed of him for it." Kakashi said, taking a moment to collect his thoughts. "But unlike you, Susumu, I didn't die on that day; the day that my life changed. I was Kakashi then, and I am Kakashi now...and as Kakashi Hatake, I no longer resent my father for the choices he made. Were I to be placed in his position, I would do as he did. My friends are more meaningful than any single mission. Were it necessary, I would give up my life for theirs."

"Do not make such promises freely, my friend." The maskless Minoru turned his mouth into a smirk. "You may be in that very position as we speak. I brought you here for a very specific purpose."

"I suspected as much," Kakashi answered. "If that's the case, then let's drop the formalities and get to the point. You've had a hard time of life in this world, but you _do_ remain alive. It's not too late for you to give up your quest for revenge; we can still become allies."

Minoru laughed, tossing his head back and causing his hair to flow awkwardly, half-stiff from dirt and dryness. "Allies? What a splendid idea. In fact, Kakashi, I have been wishing to invite you into my fold. Your capabilities are not only legendary, but they are true. Your presence among our village will bolster our power to unseen heights. With you wearing our colors, we will finally be ready to make ourselves known to the world, and—"

"I didn't mean it like that, Susumu," Kakashi said, raising a finger to cut the other man off. "I meant an alliance between the Truth and the Leaf. Personally, I would never approve of an alliance with you, but your _people_ deserve the chance before they're swallowed up. You're blind where it counts...your bitterness over the actions of Danzo and Orochimaru are your driving force, and yet...a man like you, with such intelligence and insight, must know that they are not the true faces of our village."

"They are what lurks beneath the light's reach. When the sun is down, the Leaf Village is Danzo's playground, and he dances freely in the shadows. The Land of Fire is not safe from his pet, Orochimaru, either." Minoru said, his voice hushing a bit. He had allowed his enthusiasm to get to him a moment before, and he subdued himself greatly to compensate.

"Orochimaru is our enemy as well as yours, Minoru," Kakashi said. "Danzo has been forbidden from acting on his own, although we have reason to believe that he is involved with this other presence that surrounds your village. The Hokage had no part in sending this siege to your doorstep."

"You lie, and lie again, Kakashi Hatake. This talk of an alliance with the Leaf is a trap, and you should know better than to lie to my face..." Minoru growled, gritting his teeth. His face strained mightily as his hands struggled to stay clasped. "I have already silently suffered a lie today, a lie from the lips of a cherished pupil of mine. I do not know what spell you have cast upon her, or upon Kaine, but I will see it undone..."

"Her?" Kakashi asked, bewildered. The room began to groan beneath his feet and around his ears, as if a mighty quake was beginning.

"Kaine was always a man who cherished freedom, even despite my best efforts to show him the truth of life," Minoru continued, taking deep breaths. The pumping of his lungs became stronger than it had been, the raspy dryness that framed his story then being overtaken by a smoother, more sinister tone. "Yet, there is another person I trusted. You have somehow turned Kaine against me, and in turn, you have compelled him to turn Akemi Yamaguchi against me as well." He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, taking his hands apart from one another as he exhaled.

"Akemi...You mentioned her once before. Is she your other 'hand,' Minoru?" Kakashi was alarmed by the dissolving of the hand sign, having been under the impression that it maintained the barrier. Despite the relaxation now waving through Minoru's body, Kakashi felt tense, like he expected a pinprick but wasn't quite sure where it would land.

"She has never lied to me, Kakashi; not until you captured Kaine and then released him to spread your poison to the others. What did you say to him, Kakashi? How did you convince him of your d_amnable lies_?" Minoru flexed his fingers, rolling his arms at the shoulder in each socket. He was limbering himself up.

"I don't think that I'm the one who turned him, Minoru," Kakashi said, reaching down to his hip and drawing his kunai again. "The Byakugan is powerful, but it cannot see into a man's inner heart, can it?"

"I can see your physical heart, Kakashi. It beats slowly, soothingly; it pumps blood without fault or hesitation. Your skin does not sweat; your eyes are not frantic. You have no fear of me, do you?" The black-haired steward of truth grew a twisted grin along his countenance. Kakashi answered with silence, his stance implying wordlessly that he was prepared for anything. Minoru cackled, shaking his head and looking to the rusty floor of his narrow throne room. Despite his undoing of the sign, there was no indication that the barrier had come down. "You remind me of him, Kakashi."

"Your fellow team leader...the one who's now Mamban?" Kakashi asked, pointedly.

"Yes, that's right. He and I...we were ultimately on two different paths. He is a larger threat to your people than I will ever be. Between the two of us, he and I, he is the one who took much more eagerly to Orochimaru's very specific methods of 'education,' if you will." Minoru was no longer panting. The groaning of the surrounding metal was growing louder.

"What game is this, now? What have you been doing all this time?" Kakashi asked, ignoring the implications of Mamban's motive.

"My dear Kakashi Hatake; you have made it clear that you do not intend to submit to my rule. As an unfortunate side effect, you are now counted amongst the irredeemable garbage of the Leaf Village. I will exterminate you with my full power, here and now. Next, I will hunt the misguided fool who is listening in through your stomach..." Minoru stood up, and although his appearance made it seem as if he were frail, his stance was solid and his body did not waver.

"A skillful ruse. I didn't immediately see through it. Was it all to garner my sympathy?" Kakashi accused, eyeing the healthy body of Minoru as it materialized in the darkness. A trick of the faint light had been all it was; shadows playing off of one another, and perhaps a subtle push of chakra here and there. A very faint transformation. The truth of Minoru, of Susumu Hyuga, was a strong, fit and capable man who had a robust form and a full, unfettered voice.

"To destroy one's enemy, one must utilize their tricks. Though I detest dishonesty, I thought perhaps that it would serve as a useful tool. Regardless of what is to come, I want you to know that I truly did wish for your aid against the savagery of Mamban. He enslaves your people and my people alike. He will eventually move against the Leaf, and he seeks my help in doing so." Minoru smirked, reaching down to the metallic floor and picking up his mask from where Kakashi had dropped it. He wrapped it around his eyes, tied it at the base of his hair, and hummed pleasantly. The symbol of an embellished heart upon his head protector then looked even more out of place. "Perhaps I will give my aid to him after I have killed you. Mamban _fears_ you, Kakashi, and I cannot figure out why."

"Neither can I," Kakashi played off. He wasn't sure of what Minoru had in the works, but he reached his hand up to his headband to reveal his Sharingan, allowing its tremendously keen vision to pour its information into his brain. He was given deep insight once he shut his own natural eye, and Minoru's chakra supply was seemingly infinite as it filled Kakashi's perception with a ravenous blue glow. There was a pocket of enormous energy focused upon the enemy's chest, and then another which was at the upper end of his face; the pits which held onto and powered his famous eyes.

With his mask upon his face once more, Susumu's image vanished behind blackness and he became unmistakably Minoru. "I have been looking forward to this, Kakashi Hatake. The first time I have used my true body in combat since erecting the barrier," he said, smirking confidently. He stepped down from his throne, leaving it behind to join Kakashi on level ground. The corridor was narrow, but it was not so narrow as to be impossible to move within. The ceiling was high and the walls were stiff. The only exit was a blip of light in the far distance, a peek of illumination that slipped underneath the door crack.

"I'll still let you take this back; I can speak with the Hokage about forming an alliance with the Truth Village. Think about the needs of your people, and not your thirst for revenge!" Kakashi asserted his position, holding the small hilt of his blade, the leather of his glove creaking against the tape that was wrapped around his metal weapon's base.

Minoru took a fighting stance. Although his eyes were hidden, his Byakugan was still certainly active, and he was able to see everything. Approaching him would not be easy. "My people will be well cared for, Kakashi. I wonder, are you ready to die for your loyalties?"

"I don't expect to die here," the answer came fluidly.

"Allow me to defy that expectation, Kakashi!" Minoru called out, echoing through the chamber as he leaned forward and seemed to take flight, rushing with blistering speed toward his opponent.

* * *

Akemi was with Rika that night, overlooking her as she packed a few of her 'essentials.' "What do you think about all this poison business, anyway? Do you think Hamasaki's as crazy as I do?" Akemi yawned, cupping her mouth and wiping the edge of her lips.

"Oh, he's ultra-crazy—craziest guy I've ever met. I kinda like him, though," Rika said with a shrug, tossing small objects into a pouch on her hip. They were all inconsequential things, like beads and bracelets. Though she had brought a great deal of amenities, she did not seem to want to take them out with her. She was dressed the way Akemi suggested, with no sleeves and a plain brown vest that hung a bit loose around her stomach and just barely hinted at the modest swell of her breasts. She was humming to herself as she fiddled with things, choosing whether or not to take them. "He told me how great it was here, and I was more than happy to follow a nice guy like him. He wasn't really focused on me very much, though; he was a lot more interested in my sister."

"What's your sister's name, again?" Akemi asked idly, looking out through a moonlit crack in the terribly-constructed wall of Rika's hut.

"She's Makoto. She's sweet, and I love her, but she's so damn naïve sometimes. I tried to tell her she should come along, since I could tell she really wanted to, but she kept telling me no, and then begged me not to go, either," Rika sneered, huffing through her nose. "Maybe I should have stayed home, if all this poisoning business is true. If it is, though, why haven't I felt it, Aki?" She looked to her teacher, head tilted innocently. There was a warmth growing in her eyes, but it was held back by the chill of uncertainty.

Akemi shrugged, peering at Rika through the corner of her eye. "He hasn't told me any more than he's told you, but I think he's right."

"Yeah, but...why? The food here doesn't taste bad like it's tainted, and Master Minoru wouldn't want to hurt us, would he?" Rika asked, thumbing her chin in thought.

"It's not worth dwelling on until we can get some solid answers. This Tenzo fellow should have the information we want, if we survive the trip and we can trust Hamasaki," Akemi said in return, walking away from the wall and hunching down to crouch beside Rika. She picked up a small picture in a frame, its shown face barely large enough to plug a faucet with. "Is this her? Your sister, I mean—she's kinda plain-looking," Akemi teased, turning the small photo side to side in the crisp white light that streamed through the uneven slats.

Rika blushed and took the picture from her sensei with a dainty snatch, making a hmph. "Yeah, that's her; why are you so interested?"

Akemi snickered, putting her hands on the undersides of her jaw and resting her elbows on her bent knees. "Nothing better to do while you pack things up. How much more do you really want to bring along?" she asked while turning her head to study the layout of the single room dwelling. It was small and cramped, and on top of that it was loaded with low-quality blankets, pillows, and towels. "Did you rob an inn, or something?"

"Kind of. It's all stuff that belongs to my family's place; I figured, since it's getting cold, I wouldn't want to be left without something to cover up with." Rika cleared her throat, realizing in the wake of the conversation that maybe she had over-packed on the first trip.

"How'd you even get it here? No offense, but uh," Akemi playfully drifted off, reaching out to squeeze Rika's bicep, able to loop her thumb around to her forefinger with ease around the other woman's arm. "You aren't exactly a powerhouse."

"Kaine offered to carry it. Like I said, I think he's a nice guy." Rika nodded, reaffirming what she stated a minute before. "He's got a temper and a lousy way with words, but he's the kind of guy my parents would want me to end up with. Strong, hardworking, handsome...a bit of an arrogant loudmouth, but everybody's got faults, you know?"

"Handsome, eh?" Akemi released Rika's arm and then nudged her with an elbow. "Ever told him you feel that way?"

Rika tilted her head. "Oh, you mean like...no, I never would. It's nothing like that...you know what I mean, right?" The black curls swam around her head like a school of fish when she bobbed her shoulders in a shrug. "I can think a guy's handsome without feeling attracted to him...can't you do the same?"

Akemi winked. "Like you wouldn't believe, Rika."

"Remind me to ask you what that means, Aki," Rika answered with a light smile. She had sorted out most of her miscellaneous items and tucked them into a buttoned pouch, flopping it closed and snapping it into place.

"It's not that complicated, I promise." Akemi shrugged, noticing that her student was finished packing. "Ready to go? Hamasaki's probably already waiting for us."

"Sure, let's sneak out like good little ninjas," Rika chuckled, standing up and almost losing her balance. She had been on the floor longer than she expected, and her foot was asleep. She stumbled forward, but Akemi caught her under her closest arm.

"You should make this place bigger sometime," Akemi mused.

"If we don't come back, I won't have to."

"Do you want to come back? How do you want this to turn out?" Akemi asked, patting off her own backside. She had sat in some dirt that had blown in with the wind.

"I don't think I want to go_ home_, but maybe this place was a mistake," Rika said as honestly as she could. "What do you think, Aki? Do you want to come back here?"

"Yeah, I do. If you want me to be honest, I don't want to leave in the first place...but if Hamasaki's right, and there's something bad happening around here, I don't want to be separated from you. Or him." She was quick to add the last bit.

"You know, I've been meaning to ask you something, Aki," Rika stopped what she was doing, turning on her waking heel to face her sensei with richly dark eyes. "Why do you call Kaine 'Hamasaki' all the time? I get it, like...it's his last name. Just, you don't call me Mori; he's the only one you talk to that way."

Akemi scowled, letting off a hard breath. "Yeah, well...why did you choose to leave your family behind?"

Rika pouted, crossing her bare arms in a huff. "It's like _that_, still, huh?"

"Must be," Akemi replied, eyes closed and head turned away with her nose upturned and her mouth puffed out stubbornly.

"Whatever, Aki; let's go meet Kaine," Rika said, taking momentary charge of the situation. Her brazenness was fueled by her need to escape the lingering curiosity. Having been denied an answer, she was sure to dwell on the possibilities. "I'll bug you about it later."

* * *

Kaine was standing out by the food stores. He already had what he wanted from his home tucked into a , and so he was waiting for Akemi and Rika to show up. The sun had been down for hours, and the night was below freezing. Kaine didn't mind the cold; the dark sleeves of his outfit kept him insulated and his vest kept him toasty around the core. He felt a bit exposed without his headband, still, but his thick mop of midnight blue hair kept him warm enough as it dangled messily around the sides of his head. Much of the rest of the village was asleep; there were no guards posted, as usual. He was the only one roaming around; he could see dim glow of fires through cracks in self-made homes, and smoke puffed out of chimney holes. It was a soothing, nostalgic feeling.

He had already taken a small sample of the leftover food from around the tables. The nut shells and berry leaves had traces of meat left, and that should serve their purposes. He refused to take even a single fresh morsel from the hungering people. He himself hadn't even since his return from the hospital. The thought of taking in the meager rations of the Truth Village was no longer tempting after having tasted the comforting splendor of Makoto's family stew. He craved that flavor again, and he constantly had to convince himself that his poisonous theories were not a rationalization to give himself an excuse to return to Monolith Point.

He wanted to go back to her. He had barely known her for more than an afternoon, and yet he saw something in her that transcended her individuality. He saw an idea, a place to call home, and he hated the thought of it. The Truth Village was his home, but it did not feel the same as that sleepy town so many miles to the west. He hated Kakashi for a great many reasons, and yet he was even beginning to miss the bastard. Tenzo, too. Something about the Truth Village felt ludicrously hollow by comparison. He never remembered feeling that way after returning from the Leaf, but as his life came into focus, he understood a very disappointing truth—the things he thought he knew about the Leaf were not his own memories. He remembered a man named Danzo, and he distinctly remembered finding himself within the Hokage's office. There was a spunky dark-haired girl with a pig running about; he saw a pink-headed genin in the corner as well. He knew for certain that those things were true.

His doubts were infectious, and he blamed himself for jumping the gun. He was one of the few members of the village who came and went as he pleased, the other being a fellow instructor named Medo. He was a typical kind of guy, and he only had two or three students at any point in time. Skilled, but not remarkable. Kaine had been tested against Medo once before, and the match nearly ended in the latter's death. The thought was a fresh wound in the nineteen year old's mind. He had been dwelling quite a bit on all of those whom he had killed during those barbaric tests. Why did he focus so much upon them? He had killed dozens of people, and only a relatively small handful of them came from his village. The guilt was unfair. Why did he relish in the slaughter of some but painfully regret the others?

His thoughts were interrupted thankfully by the sneaking arrival of Rika and Akemi. They were dressed for travel, and although they had no spare food rations, they were already equipped to go. Akemi was in that obnoxious pink top and fluffy clay-colored pants that she seemed to obsess with. No sleeves, and only moderate coverage of her neckline. Rika looked appropriate, on the other hand. He gave a silent nod, but before they set off, he had something he wanted to say.

"If we die because of this, I'm sorry." Kaine said with unusual humility.

"We'll be fine; just worry about yourself, Hamasaki," Akemi answered, lifting her hand up and ruffling his hair. "You're the treasonous one, here."

"Aren't we kind of like his accomplices for going along with it, though?" Rika asked, raising her hand as if she were still in a class.

"Yeah, if one of us hangs, we probably all will." Kaine made his point clear. "Last chance to back out, you two; I'm going to go right now, and we're all going to run as soon as we pass the barrier. If we watch each other and keep a triangle formation, we should have a minimal risk scenario. Rika, you've gotten good, but you should focus on calling out threats, rather than engaging them yourself. Akemi and I will deal with any opponents that show up." Kaine gave a brief summary of the plan as he began to walk, and to his delight, both of the attractive young women tailed along behind him. He had been on missions with Akemi before, and on those missions, they had never been overcome. Because of that, he felt strong guilt over Mako and Fiona; had he been there with them, the mission would have certainly been a success. Given enough stamina and chakra, he had faith that Akemi could have handled that final obstacle named Mamban by herself, but her weaknesses were countered by Kaine's own strengths.

"Just tell me when to run," Rika said, nodding her head and shaking out her hands to get the blood flowing through the cold limbs. She hadn't thought about how negatively the freezing night air would really hit her when she walked around without sleeves, but Akemi was dressed in even a little bit less coverage...yet she wasn't even blue along the surface. She seemed positively radiant in Rika's opinion.

They exited the large body of the village, crossing a few outlying huts and then the forest of marked trees. The word truth surrounded them, a comforting greeting in the past, and yet it was a true farce as Kaine thought about it all. Tito's chakra had been the catalyst to his realization; it was the keystone, the missing link. The big idiot had gone from blind faith to genuine confusion and back to faith as a result of the chakra test. The test was the same thing as breaking a genjutsu, and Tito had been broken free of _something_ as a result. The fact that it immediately took him back over was Kaine's clue that it was something long-term, slow to pass through. The only logical answer was poison; something in the food. A big eater like Tito would be particularly susceptible to its influence, while a young, waifish thing like Rika did not eat nearly enough to receive the full effect in her short stay. It was Kaine's intention to make certain that she never fell into the wrong hands. He wasn't doing it for Rika, nor Akemi; his motive lied with Makoto.

The barrier was in front of them. Kaine could see out; there were enemies lining the trees. Too many to fight. It would have to be a sprint. With a deep breath, a glance to his left and right, and a clench of his fists, Kaine stepped forward. "Let's move...and let's not die." Kaine clapped his hands and signaled an opening into the barrier. With three steps in unison, Kaine Hamasaki, Akemi Yamaguchi, and Rika Mori made their escape from the Truth and into the territory of a volatile occupation force.

* * *

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	18. Experimental Outcomes

**Thank you so much for reading. Enjoy!**

* * *

Kakashi was ready for Minoru's rushing attack, and once again, the first strike was a thrust of fingers aimed for Kakashi's eye. With a dip of his head, Kakashi slipped beneath the dangerous hand, launching a counter attack to his assailant's chest. His own hand was intercepted by Minoru's second, diverting the punch into the empty darkness of the air by the side of his wrist. They were worthy of one another as opponents, and as they traded blow for blow, neither one of them could perfectly strike the other. Kakashi's Sharingan provided deep insight into the movements of Minoru's muscles, which prevented the 'blind' man from connecting as he liked. On the same spectrum, Minoru's Byakugan allowed him to see attacks from every angle, enabling him to counter their path with relative ease.

In a match of even blows, the Byakugan user had an advantage. He was well-trained as a Hyuga, which was something that Kakashi had seen outside of the village, demonstrated by the clone. All of the kunai, all of the massive rocks—they were destroyed by the gentle fist style; Susumu was a master of the rotation technique that made such meager attacks useless. The sound of colliding bone, flesh, and cloth echoed through the steel hollow, accompanied by grunts and huffs of exertion from both fighters.

The brief skirmish ended in a draw as both combatants abruptly took a leap backward. Kakashi was unscratched, and so was his opponent. Minoru smirked. "Impressive, Kakashi Hatake. I was not even holding back," he admitted, taking a deep breath and calming his nerves. Engaging Kakashi was dangerous, but he had several ways to come out on top. A few of them were better held close to the vest; he didn't like the idea of showing off his full capabilities to the Sharingan.

"No need to lie," Kakashi said, standing calmly with his left eye glowing red in the dark. Its comma-shapped dots looked like they were dancing as his pupil made tiny, imperceptible movements to track every molecule of air in front of him. "I don't want to kill you, Susumu," Kakashi said, reaching both hands to his pouch and producing one kunai for each one. "but that doesn't mean it won't happen."

Minoru made a tsk, dipping into a stance that invited attack. "Come at me, then. Kill me with your trinkets."

Kakashi attacked first, this time, mindful of the fact that his Sharingan was a constant drain on his stamina. He had grown much more accustomed to its use over the past year or so of training, and it was less of a concern in most battles. What concerned him was the glowing point beneath Minoru's plush robe and beside his heart; it looked like some kind of implant, and his chakra was a vaguely different color around that spot. A battery of some sort? On the outside, the copy ninja's assault was blindingly fast, coming in from the front. As Minoru tried to counter, he was circumvented by a flash of motion. Kakashi whirled around behind and dropped to his hip, turning harshly to spin a kick toward the other man's calves. The assault was jumped over, but Kakashi spun once again, delivering kick after kick that followed Minoru up into the air until Kakashi reached the end of his own height, propped up by his outstretched arm.

Minoru had fully blocked each kick, using his opponent's feet as stepping stones to gain just enough height to avoid the full force of the next blow. As Kakashi balanced on one hand, the other hand threw its kunai. Minoru deflected it with bare fingers, charged with the customary layer of gentle fist. It was a powerful defense, and a deceptively effective offense as well. Kakashi had to be entirely certain not to come into contact with the palms or fingertips. Each block and each attack the silver-haired man had delivered thus far had been designed to work between the layers of defense. He had _almost_ found a sturdy hit on more than one occasion, but it was exceptionally difficult to make good contact against his quick opponent.

Minoru rose into the air off of the last kick, catching onto an errant metal rod that hung from the ceiling like a meat hook. He dangled there with a smirk on his face. Though his mask was in place, Kakashi could see the madness in his eyes. His chakra burned straight through the thin black layer with monstrous purpose, looking to devour his face and take a life of its own. The Sharingan's sight was almost overwhelmed by the amount of raw power. "You'll need to do better," Minoru chided.

Kakashi threw another kunai, but a bare hand deflected it, sending it whizzing against clanging metal. "So will you," Kakashi said, noting in his mind that he had not yet been touched effectively, either. In a battle at such a high level, the chances were good that the first person to land a staggering blow would be the victor. "We don't need to fight." Kakashi reiterated his stance, even as he reached into his pouch to produce and prepare a few more tools.

"And yet we _do_ fight. This is not a disagreement that can be settled with words, but through unconditional surrender and submission; death is the only way to escape my rule," Minoru said from above, his voice coming down and swirling around the chamber to regurgitate its sickeningly despotic tone. "You and I are the ones who will decide the fate of the Land of Fire. Here and now." He dropped himself from his overhead perch, landing without sound against the metal. He was now positioned between Kakashi and the far, far door that was the only means of escape.

"Are you forgetting about your friend Mamban? What role does he play in all of this?" Kakashi was ready with some wire string wrapped tightly around one wrist and shuriken filling each of his fingers on both hands.

"He's a fool with impossible ambitions, Kakashi. I will lure him into my fold and slay him, all as punishment for his lies." Minoru shrugged both shoulders, taking his hands to his robe and undoing the front flap. Peeling the thick blue fabric away from his torso, he was revealed to be wearing a vest like Kakashi's, though it was deep blue, more like the one that Kaine had worn. He dropped the full weight of his cumbersome status accoutrements, left wearing a rank and file shinobi uniform. "First, I must use him for his naivety; he believes that he can subjugate my people and myself through a false alliance. He thinks that he will win us over with food and protection. He is mistaken, of course."

Free of his robe, Minoru looked much like Kakashi from the neck down, though without gloves and with more traditionally wooden, bottom-only sandals. His pouches were empty of tools, seemingly believing himself to be above the use of such objects. Kakashi scoffed. "You never told me what exactly happened to you while Orochimaru had you prisoner. Did the same thing happen to Mamban?"

Minoru nodded. "To Susumu, to Mamban, to our teams and to the children...Orochimaru turned us into the subjects of his experiments. We overheard that there was a mere ten percent survival rate; only the strong were allowed to live. The weak became corpses and were tossed aside to be reprocessed."

"So your team...and the children from the school? Were they weak?" Kakashi asked, still primed and ready with his assortment of weapons on hand.

Susumu caught his breath against the back of his throat, as if some unbidden emotion tried to force its way out, and was then squashed an inch away from its freedom. "They were all weak of body. The vile serums did not care for the strength of character, the intensity of one's love...Sweet, simple Kanagi was my dear friend, yet he was the first to succumb. He is a boy who had never raised his voice in an argument, and yet...on the event that forced his life to flee his body, he screamed in a way that shook us all. The foolish young man who eventually became Mamban had been terrified of that sound—of knowing that his own throat could possibly produce such a desperate call."

"Would you visit the same death and desperation upon the innocent lives you condemn in the Leaf?" Kakashi asked, taking a cautious step forward. Minoru looked entirely different without the flowing robe that had obscured his form. He was lithe and strong, making for a small and agile target, his ankles framed by the remnants of his deep blue regality. He stepped away from the robe and hummed in response to Kakashi's question.

"There is no innocence in the Leaf," Minoru said smoothly, getting close to Kakashi as he eased forward. "Only the dead will ever know peace from the countless wars; wars that were begun and ended by _your_ precious village."

"You mean to start another war; to become what you hate," Kakashi countered. It was no use to argue with a tyrant, because the depraved mind resting behind those creamy Byakugan did not realize what had happened to it. "You talk of cleansing the world of lies, you even took the name 'Truth,' and yet your people have no idea what lurks behind the mask, do they?"

Minoru shook his head. "No, they do not. It is better if they attribute my heightened awareness to something incomprehensible. If they see me as a mere man with a practical, explainable power, they will certainly be less willing to die for me. To them, I must be construed as their only hope—their true God."

"Do you realize how insane that sounds to me, Susumu?" Kakashi asked, prepared for things to escalate again at any moment. The lull of conversation had allowed him to catch his breath, but the threat of violence was still thick in the stale, dry air.

"I do, Kakashi. You cannot comprehend me, even as you know precisely who I am and why I do it. You have been raised to believe that your enemies are inhuman; insane. To hold a view that conflicts with the Leaf is to become true evil. For the ideas I have in my head, I am to be killed...isn't that right?" Minoru spread his arms out to either side, his vest unprotected by either hand. "Kill me, Kakashi, if that is your mission."

"You must think I'm stupid," Kakashi replied, keeping a healthy distance. So far, Minoru had shown no long range potential. Up close, Kakashi was less likely to win the fight. Though his speed and strength were superior to Minoru's, the added threat of the internal damage and chakra sealing of the Hyuga fighting style kept him tied with his enemy. To land a decisive blow was to risk being disabled from the shoulder down to the fingers.

"You're quite right about that," Minoru answered in a surprisingly cheerful tone. "As stupid as they come."

Kakashi rolled his eyes. "Let's see what we can do," he said as he appeared to throw caution to the wind. He needed Minoru to think that he had been goaded; to continue toying around. Kakashi's plan was risky, but he had known the high risks when he entered the village alone in the first place. He would need to keenly avoid anything further down Minoru's arm than the base of his wrist—but the wrists were the key to it all. The feet were less threatening—the striking power of a Hyuga came through the hands and the hands alone, and although it was summarily confined, it was a fearsome power nonetheless.

With his fingers looped through a dozen shuriken spread out on each hand, Kakashi made for a close attack. Minoru responded in kind, rushing to meet Kakashi halfway. The rapid exchange of blows began anew, but Kakashi had a different goal in mind. As their hands came together and blasted apart, he slowly unraveled the wire tied around his wrist. Kakashi shifted strategies, opting toward using his feet and legs, and although he was persistently dodged and deflected, he managed to eventually capture one of Minoru's wrists between his ankles and turn violently at the midsection to throw his opponent to the ground. It could have been the decisive blow, and yet Minoru could see in every direction at once, giving him a direction to reach and letting him find another stray rod poking out from the worn steel construction. He caught himself in the air just before he was slammed head-first into the floor, but Kakashi's two-footed grip still caused a problem, leaving Minoru wide open with his arms spread apart as he wrestled to regain composure. The wire string came forth in a ribbon-like procession, weaving itself around the Hyuga's ankles and tying them together at the end of Kakashi's grip. Kakashi released Minoru's arm from his lower grasp, and predictably, the truth's first move was to charge his fingers with chakra, aiming to sever the wire from around his legs.

Kakashi threw two of his shuriken tied together like a pair of bola, the contraption then connected to more string at the center and leading back to Kakashi, weighted around his torso. As Minoru fought to avoid the entanglement, more wires were thrown in the same fashion, and he gradually found himself overcome by the sheer tensile strength of the strings. Though they looked quite frail, the truth was that the tiny threads were as strong as the imposing fortress of twisted metal that encased the room. The wires were secured in place by the sinking blades of the metal stars; they whipped around and connected together before cutting into the cloth of the vest, as well as the flesh of Minoru's wrists and arms. His hands were immobilized by the biting pain that pinched around his veins, preventing him from slicing free until it was too late and he had been essentially hogtied. Minoru looked ridiculous as he fell from his place above the ground, arms twisted over his chest and behind his lower back and fingers twitching angrily. He was tied like he was in a cocoon, looking thoroughly defeated in body, but determined in face as he grimaced. "You're a fool if you think this is enough," came the irritated voice that echoed against the cold metal that supported his heaped weight.

"It's not over," Kakashi agreed, brandishing four kunai crossed between his fingers in each hand. "Not yet," he added, lashing his arms back and then launching them forward, throwing all eight of the glinting, sharp blades toward Minoru's vulnerable chest and throat.

* * *

Kaine was leading the charge, and as Akemi dragged Rika along, they made it to the closest tree line. The enemies closed in on them from all directions, more than the few dozen that had been expected. The siege had developed into a full-sized invasion force, and evidently they were not keen on letting any warm bodies escape from the Truth Village. Cursing, Kaine looked from left to right, spotting Akemi and Rika as they did the same. The inexperienced one of the three didn't look worried, and that was good—even if she was truthfully incompetent, it did no good to let the enemy see it in her. A tightly formed group of three was a tough nut to crack, and they had a good few moments of planning before the assault closed in. The moments were precious, and before a single good idea could form in Kaine's head, they had passed. The only thing he could say was the same thing his savagely beating heart said to him: _Kill them all._

_"Kill them all!" _Kaine screamed in something like a panic. He had underestimated the enemy presence, and since his forward retreat was cut off by a thick line of them all, he had no choice but to make a final stand. Akemi nodded, but her worried, rookie charge was less consenting.

"W-what do you mean? Earlier, you said we were just running!" Rika stuttered, but she turned to move like her sensei to fill out the triangle, an automatic maneuver that her training had enforced in her.

Kaine lashed his head to the side, looking at Rika with angry, yet fearful blue eyes. "Plans change—we're not going to make it unless we break through these bastards. The way forward is blocked, the way _backward _is blocked—if you want to see Makoto again, you're going to have to kill every last one of the men and women coming at us through these trees!"

Rika blanched, having almost forgotten the reality of their world over the previous days; it all felt like a nightmare, like Mako and Fiona were wisps of imagination that had simply faded away. Akemi's fevered words flashed back to her student in that instant. _We don't get to enjoy the people we love; we watch them die. Violently._ Was it Rika's fate to be killed in such a way; to be another person lost to the brutality of the shinobi climate? No. She refused it. When faced with the choice to fight, or to cower, Mako and Fiona had chosen to huddle up and wait for death, while Rika had chosen to step in for them and block the countless blades sent their way atop that burning house.

It seemed so long ago, despite only a few days having passed. Though she should have been dead, even despite fighting, Akemi saved her life—and she vehemently refused to turn that kindness to vapor by dying so quickly afterward. She didn't stutter, this time: "You're right, Kaine...Let's kill 'em all," Rika said, shaking herself free of nagging weight and worry, reaching down into her pack and producing a kunai. Her fingers brushed against some of her salvaged possessions, but she refused to think of anything other than the people to her right and left. "And if we all live, I want you to make me a knife just like Aki's," she added, trying to keep herself free of jitters. Survival in the present meant looking toward the future.

"It's a promise," Kaine answered, smirking.

Akemi was already forming seals, speaking through a harsh breath as she sent out her first technique. "If Rika gets a new one, I want something done to my old one," she shouted out playfully as she formed a wall, then willed it to burst into smaller fragments and sending them sailing through the air. It was a shotgun effect; the parts were not especially well-aimed, but the enemies had shown themselves and were swarming in. A few of them were clipped on the shoulder and the leg mid-air, but a few others were also struck at the neck and head, forcing their spines into sickening positions when they landed. She had thinned them out, but only by four. The rest recovered and continued closing in.

Kunai were being thrown as part of the assault, but all three of the Truth members were capable of deflecting the hail with a single, blade-holding hand while the other hands made busy with other weapons. Kaine charged up a lance of water and electricity. It was an uncommon technique, despite how practical it was, and the curiosity had always penetrated Kaine's mind—_Many people have lightning and water natures; why don't more people combine them together? _He began to throw the destructive pikes, blasting apart trees, leaves, and mud as the impacts turned into crashing waves and jolting lightning. He cut through swaths of suicidally rushing numbers, and although he and Akemi were trimming through the ranks, Rika was the third arm of their force, and she represented a painfully weak link. Not that she wasn't trying—she summoned up a rather impressive fireball that caught onto the bare trees of their surroundings. The smoke and heat flushed out a good number of the opponents and the flames spread in the dry cold of the night.

"Nice form!" Akemi shouted over her shoulder, acknowledging Rika's progress as the latter panted heavily. That blast took almost all of the novice's chakra, and both Kaine and Akemi knew it—still, it was one step closer to their goal. The goal was pulled out of reach when the elemental jutsus began to flood in. Water, wind and fire were sent hurting toward the trio. "Not good," Akemi called out, but she had quickly devised a plan. "Hamasaki, we need lightning—Rika, get us some more fire! I'll handle the rest!"

Kaine and Rika nodded, and while Rika might have been low on chakra already, she was met with a sudden rush of adrenaline as she saw the massive boulders, waves and slicing air moving toward her from high and far. Life or death; fire or harmless smoke. She chose to inhale, throwing the dice and breathing out—what emerged was a second rush of massive flames, bolstered by the oncoming slices of wind that were meant to bisect her and her companions.

Seeing that Rika had managed another burst, Akemi knew she could trust Kaine. She clapped her hands to the ground, forming shackles made of rocky earth that crudely erupted from the dirt and bound Rika, Kaine, and herself to the sturdiness of the dry land at their feet. Rika didn't have time to question it, too busy focusing on keeping up her streaming inferno.

Kaine, though, protested. "Hey, what's the big idea here!?" He shouted, though he was still forming seals for a powerful, sustained lightning blast. Every element could be summoned through the mouth, though lightning was one that took a great deal of concentration.

"Just trust me," Akemi said as she executed another technique, summoning up an assortment of spikes that had a similar construction to the shackles, splayed outward on all sides. "And focus! It's gonna be a bumpy ride!"

"Ride!?" Kaine exclaimed just before he started to fire a stream of lightning. Three elements on three sides, all of them to counter the enemy. The enemy, though, had coverage on all sides. Having the three counter-elements would not be enough to deflect all of the attacks in every direction if each one only filled a third of their circle—especially since the three elements were a combination that also countered their own three, in different exchanges.

Akemi realized early on that the only way to survive the attack, which came from every direction including up, was to create a sphere—and spheres of chakra required rotation. Akemi figured that the best way to get a three-person rotation was to rotate the ground beneath...and thus, she made sure that her allies were tightly secured from the ankles down, and then she set off the technique that would either save them, or kill them. The earth rocked and protested as segments broke free of one another. Tree roots were mangled and rocks were flung up and out as a conical segment of land began to spin, carrying the trio as they fired off their techniques. It would need to be fast—Akemi held her breath and focused as much of her chakra as she could.

They spun, and while Rika nearly lost her balance, the braces at her feet kept her stable enough to concentrate on propelling every last drop of her chakra. The edges of her vision went black as she was spun around, simultaneously running out of air and chakra as she was whirled around like a bug riding on a spinning top. From the outside, the trio of lightning, fire and earth looked cohesive as it meshed into a sphere that combined all three elements and expanded outward. The oncoming attacks were vaporized by the combined defense, and a few of the closest members of Mamban's army were charred, impaled and vaporized. The flashy display of vibrantly spinning blue, orange and brown became an unstable mess and dispersed harmlessly after a few long seconds of defensive twirling.

Akemi was exhausted, and so was Rika. Kaine still had fuel in his tank, and so he fired off a few more lances of watery jolts. He was panting, sweating and dizzy, but he could see clearly enough to know that their last-ditch effort wasn't enough. The enemy had vastly superior numbers. If he had broken rank with Rika and Akemi, they would have been individually surrounded and picked off. Staying together was their only choice, and even that was not good enough. That red snake, Mamban, truly controlled a large force all his own. "I'm sorry, Akemi...Rika," Kaine murmured as he tried to stay focused. He had never used so much chakra in such a short amount of time, and still been forced to continue fighting.

Akemi was out of chakra, but she remained standing, pulling out her knife and deflecting as many stray shuriken and kunai as she could. Their surroundings were littered with the tiny metal stars, and the chunk of earth that they had been spun around on was lopsided and crumbling. The same trick wouldn't have worked again even if there was any chakra to spare. Dozens of the enemy had been killed on all sides, but dozens more remained—it was over.

"Don't start apologizing yet, Hamasaki," Akemi said, heaving her breaths hard. "We can always hope for a miracle," she said with a humorous wink, though it was hollow. She had never believed in miracles.

Rika was the one who had collapsed, and although she was not outwardly hurt, she had used much of herself in the preceding moments. She panted desperately, clutching her chest as she tried to gather up her strength. The enemies could seemingly sense that their targets were worn down, and although Kaine was forming up another technique, he knew it was meaningless. _If we die, we should at least thin them out for the benefit of the others._

He threw the last lance he could manage, and although it spread chaos through the enemy ranks, his next attempt fizzled him out. It hadn't felt like a very long fight, but it was a lot of constant exertion. The stress was too much, and even Kaine fell onto his knees and wailed. "Damn it all! They think I'm going to just surrender...we're not just going to surrender," he said through gritted teeth. He reached his hand over to rest on Akemi's shoulder, and she nodded. Akemi put her hand down, and Rika drearily took hold of it to stand up, shaking her head and showing off her dirty, yet perky curls.

"We're gonna die here, together," Akemi said to Rika with a low, consoling tone. "But not at the exact same time. If me and Hamasaki go first, you're going to have to keep fighting...or end it yourself. Don't let them turn you into a slave; do anything you have to do. Just stay free until the end...do you understand me?"

Rika looked at Akemi with a vacant fear in her eyes. She felt raw and exposed, but above all else, she felt useless. She had to be picked up. She had to be _told_ to fight until her last breath. She knew she couldn't be trusted as a third member of that team; they were the very best of the Truth, or at least, that was what she had always been told—fast-learner or not, she was just their baggage, the result of a coincidental partnership that only ever came about because of who her sister was. Rika Mori, as she felt, was not worth mentioning—and yet, Akemi sacrificed her time, her other students, and now it seemed that it would come to her very life, all for the sake of that doe-eyed, black-haired simpleton from a forgotten village called Monolith Point.

"I-I understand," Rika said to Akemi. Her sensei looked so stern and cold, and Rika felt feathery and flawed beneath that perfectly measured gaze. She reached up with a weak, shuddering hand to cup Akemi's cheek with a soft palm. "T-thanks for being here for me," she said quietly. Kaine was off to the side, raging in his own skin as he tried to come up with one last plan—one final escape method. Akemi's earth tunnel wouldn't save them; there were too many other earth users among the enemy ranks. Kaine himself was out of chakra, and although he was terrifyingly effective in close combat, any number higher than six or seven would quickly overwhelm him. He was staring down a rank of thirty or more that remained. Countless more had yet to show themselves from their perches and hiding places. They had not abandoned hope—hope was abandoning _them. _

_ "Come at me!" _Kaine roared defiantly, resenting his enemies for ceasing their assault. It was obvious that the trio had no fight left in them. Even the ever-enduring Kaine Hamasaki was on shaky feet, nearly stumbling over from exhaustion. He tried again to form a lance, and he felt his network drained completely of chakra. He kept trying—better to die of his own attempts than to let a despicable enemy take him instead. "Come here and...let me kill you," he said, losing some of the strength in his voice.

Just as the fate had been accepted, the ground cracked and broke; the trees twisted and bent of their own accord. Hoards of hidden and showing villains in black robes and faceless masks cried out in surprise, pain, and struggling. Looking around, it was as if the very forest itself had risen up to become the savior of a rag-tag bunch of fools who sought to challenge something far greater than themselves. Above-average skills and an attitude of defiance was not enough to fight a force of true power in the ninja world—a source of power like whatever had suddenly and effortlessly dispatched of every enemy lingering in that section of the woods. It was far from the entire army, but it was a considerable fraction of it—all of them were captured, held down by living wood from head to toe.

Kaine blinked, unable to process what had just happened. Akemi blinked, too, and Rika blushed as she took her hand from her teacher's cheek to look around and see what had happened. "Was that..." Akemi began to say. "Was that a miracle?"

Kaine shook his head, clearing his thoughts and letting a huge grin form along his stern face. His tan skin flexed beyond its normal constraints, turning a bit white with a lack of blood as he laughed outwardly. "A miracle? Hell no..." Kaine turned to look high and left, spotting the source of their salvation. It was simply a man, a man dressed as a Leaf Jonin and wearing their symbol on his bizarrely formed face protector. Kaine recognized him immediately: "_That_, Akemi...is Tenzo."

Akemi was in awe, and so was Rika. "The legendary technique of Hashirama Senju," Akemi said wistfully, turning to look at Rika's slack-jawed expression. "Maybe we really _can_ trust this guy..." she said as she looked down at her feet. The roots and branches had never even approached them, yet the carnage radiated out in all directions. Tenzo was specifically there to save her; to save Kaine, and to save Rika.

The enemies were not killed; they were quite thoroughly disabled, but even so, Tenzo was holding fast with a specific handsign. He called down to Kaine, somewhat breaking the illusion of his own miraculous savior back-light. "Hurry! I can't hold them down for much longer!" It was true; the enemies were already starting to cause their wooden prisons to shudder. On a single target, he could hold them without much difficulty, but when the numbers were so vast, it took a massive toll on his chakra. "Let's get out of here!" Tenzo yelled with mild urgency.

Kaine nodded, and saw that Akemi had already hoisted Rika's arm over her shoulders to carry her. "This way!" Kaine called back to them, waving his hand forward and sprinting with all his remaining effort toward Tenzo's location. Tenzo turned as well, leading the way—deeper into the woods, away from the Truth Village.

As the group caught up to Tenzo, they could all hear the cracking of wood in the distance. Some of the attackers were already escaping, but they were not giving chase—the priority was the village, after all. Kaine looked to Tenzo and, rather than talk too much about the situation and how eternally grateful he was, he asked a more poignant question—"Where's Kakashi?"

Tenzo looked to Kaine, his deep black eyes set in their odd oval shape. "Kakashi's in your village right now," he began. "There's something you should know, but now isn't the time, nor is this the place...I'll let him tell you himself, when he catches up."

"What? Kakashi's in the Truth?" Akemi asked, piping up from behind.

"That's right," Tenzo said, regarding the unfamiliar female and assuming that she was a friend of Kaine's. She had a headband just like his, albeit with a different symbol, so it was an easy thing to assume. "I've been watching him the same way I was watching Kaine when he returned...Kakashi has been fighting Minoru, but...the fight is over." He trailed off, then shook his head to clear his doubts. "Like I said, we should wait until he can tell you about it himself."

"Did Kakashi assassinate the leader of the Truth?" Kaine asked, deliberately avoiding using the leader's name. It still left a bitter taste in his mouth; perhaps it was the taste of poison.

Tenzo heard the question, but he kept his mouth shut about it. Instead, he diverted the focus away from his partner: "Right now, we need to get some distance between us—" he cut himself off, looking back over his shoulder. "—and them. You can ask questions later." Tenzo was doing his best to avoid giving the answers himself, though he knew the truth just as well as Kakashi did. The reality of it was far too surreal for him to wrap his head around.

_The poor souls wouldn't believe me even if I __**did**__ tell them what happened..._

* * *

** Thank you again for reading; I know it's a long story, but I've been loving every second of writing it. I hope you have all been loving it as much as I have. Let me know; leave a review, a follow, or a favorite if you want to. If you don't, that's fine, too. I'm just glad to be writing! And as always, the next update is coming very soon!  
**


	19. The Leaf's Mythical Monster

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Kakashi had thrown eight kunai with the clear intent to slay Susumu Hyuga—or rather, his living husk of spite and bitterness. The dangerous thoughts of the charismatic yet deceptive leader were entirely lucid; that one was not a case of insanity or a misguided venture—there was clear intelligence, full awareness in every word, despite how unstable it may have all sounded to a rational brain. The heart of Susumu was truly dead, and what remained of him, the spectre called Minoru, was a significant threat to the Leaf. With a weighted heart, Kakashi had readied his blades, the cool metal felt with purpose between his knuckles and clutched with finality. As they flew free, Kakashi forced himself to watch the impending penetrations that would slay a once-proud and empathetic member of his own large family. He stared with a trembling, glowing eye as the tips approached their fully disabled target.

Just before the fatal contact could be made, the kunai lost their will to travel and simply froze in the air. There was a light gust of wind, a minor snap as the stale atmosphere's turbulence came to a halt; their speed had simply been drained before the face and chest of the trussed-up Minoru. Following the snap came the sound of cool, arrogant laughter. The blades were suspended, as if in time, and refused to move forward, backward, or even to fall to the metallic surface beneath. Kakashi was stunned by the shifted situation, but as the initial shock wore off in the span of a single heartbeat, the acute vision of his renowned Sharingan discovered the unsettling cause of the dilemma.

The 'battery' that had been placed near Minoru's heart had begun to spread. The goopy black chakra abruptly flowed like blood, and it overtook the raging blue aura that had once radiated so elegantly from him. As the energies spread from the central hub of his system, Minoru began to shift slightly in the tone of his flesh. His true self, locked away in a metallic chamber for an unknown number of years, was typically pale and ghostly. Despite the dissolving of his earlier emaciated ruse, he still should have had a sickly sense about him. The spreading chakra took a noticeable form on the outside, as well, and it dotted the surface of Minoru's skin with black flecks of what looked like a painted tattoo—though the truth of the matter was vastly more sinister.

Kakashi had seen those exact markings once before. They were the fiery black pattern of Sasuke Uchiha's malevolently-granted curse seal. Minoru was one of those who had been branded by Orochimaru. Though the quick moment was passing and the kunai remained lifeless, Kakashi's thoughts had quickly connected the clues. He thought of his partner; Tenzo was neither the first nor the last example of Orochimaru's twisted experiments—the white, slimy rogue had always been particularly obsessed with reproducing kekkei genkai in those who had not been born with them. In his venture to obtain every possible jutsu, the blasted snake had ended the lives of countless men, women, and children for the sake of discovering new techniques. Minoru was one of the lucky ten percent; the one person out of a helpless batch that managed to survive.

As an added bonus, the survivor had apparently received a fresh gift. To Kakashi's knowledge, no Hyuga had ever been born with the special talent that was clearly on display before his eyes. In surprise, and with no small amount of difficulty, Kakashi spoke through his breathable black mask. "Magnet Release?"

Minoru was still laughing, and as predicted, the kunai suspended in the air had begun to obey his whim, slicing sharply through the hardened ropes that constricted the new master of the thrown knives. "Indeed; a parting gift from the most truly mad creature I have ever known," Minoru said, as if boasting his own sanity when compared to the crazed sannin. His body was freed, and it was lifting up on unsteady legs to stand defiantly. "The very same madman who slaughtered my friends; no, not just friends, but people I would have called family, back when my heart still beat as Susumu's."

Kakashi took a step back, and he thought quickly on his feet to rapidly empty his vest of any metallic objects. If Minoru could manipulate metal, even if he was limited to a short range, it would be highly detrimental to have pockets full of it. Meanwhile, "It's a precious gift, indeed. Was it worth the pain?" Kakashi asked, now surrounded by shuriken, senbon, and kunai that had been dropped in a cluttering heap upon the floor. He took a step back from it, giving himself ample time to react should it all rise up.

"The pain of irreversible loss; the physical pain in my nerves that reaches into the marrow of my bones even _now,_" Minoru spat, his mouth now laced with dark lines and branches. They looked like veins that popped out of his skin, throbbing unnaturally as he exerted his power through the remarkable seal. "The agony will become worth it when the last defender of your village lies dead at my feet...and if you still refuse to join me, then I intend to start the process tonight, with _you_."

"Don't expect me to surrender in the face of a few extra toys," Kakashi challenged, but beneath the mask he realized a dire fact—the entire room, every inch of floor, wall, and ceiling between himself and the exit, was solid, refined steel. The weary groaning which he had been hearing as he held his fateful conversation with Minoru had been the foreboding noise of his approaching demise. "I have a few tricks of my own," Kakashi added, a fearless declaration that was not in any way a false one.

"Then by all means, do not hold back, Kakashi Hatake," Minoru spoke as his hands began to move in breezy swooshes, goading his surroundings to life and causing a soft quake under his own feet. "Show me your most fearsome assault," he continued, and the deafening sound of shearing metal filled the senses of each man. Entire panels of the nearby walls were being ripped away in whole plates, exposing the fresh, slickly wet mud that had framed the tunnel's ancient construction. "Justify to me your reputation as the Leaf's most effective assassin."

Kakashi had been backed toward Minoru's throne, and the path ahead was being blocked by folding steel, becoming a concave wall that was smoothly constructed and molded to perfection on the fly. "I don't need to kill you, Susumu," Kakashi said, taking a deep breath to collect his thoughts. He had expected a trap, but not one that was quite so elaborate and decisive. "I only need to bring your so-called truth into the light. Tenzo has already seen what you are—what you're willing to do for the sake of vengeance. Others will find out, one way or another."

Minoru scoffed, waving his hand angrily, sweeping his fingers through the air and finally dispensing the eight kunai that had been hovering around his head. They turned their sharp points toward Kakashi and fired suddenly as if from a slingshot, creating tiny sonic booms as they tried to strike Kakashi's heart. The Sharingan was invaluable for such a moment, giving its wielder a perfectly balanced, predictive trajectory which was easily dodged through a precise contortion of an agile body. The range of Minoru's power must have been quite limited, as he made no effort to correct the flight path—limited, or intentionally withheld. The enhanced blades managed to sink into the backrest of the simple throne further back; they were fired with such intensity that they thunked into iron like it was rotting tree bark.

Kakashi ended his graceful motion on one knee and one hand, then beginning another move by flipping his weight backward to reposition and gain a bit more distance. Escape became his new plan—he had little hope of a final blow in such a position. Most of his techniques would be dispelled by the massive steel plates that littered the battlefield, and those that could not be blocked were far too risky to use in active combat.

"You will not leave this room alive, cold-blooded Kakashi; make peace with your failure, as the final result is now inevitable," Minoru dusted himself off with one hand, seeming to forget that he had dropped his robe to the ground. He smirked as he felt the roughshod surface of his battle gear; it was always worn beneath his formal attire, but it had been so long since he had chosen to reveal it that its presence was almost a genuine surprise. "How does it feel to die cold, alone, and surrounded by fearsome darkness?"

"I don't fear the darkness, Susumu," Kakashi threw back, studying his surroundings. The earth was exposed on several sides—he could dive for it and hope to outrun the following assault. The risks were high, but the only other option was even riskier. He had forbidden himself from using _that_ technique except for in the most desperate of situations. Best to try something else, first. "This eye of mine can see straight through the black; with this vision, even as I look within _you_, I can see the faintest glimmers of light..." The abstract statement held truth. The curse mark's expansion had covered half of Minoru's face, neck, and presumably the rest of his leftmost body...and yet the black, devastatingly bleak chakra had been unable to taint the Byakugan. In a somewhat ironic twist of fate, the man's eyes were the only part of him that remained true to who he once was. "Is that why you choose to cover your eyes? Can you not stand seeing the face of Susumu Hyuga within the mirror, looking back at you with disdain for what you've become?"

"Susumu desires revenge, just as I do," Minoru said, while maintaining his personal illusion that his past life was also a past death. "His final hope was for a spirit of revenge to inhabit his body; to replace his soul with a beast who cared not for honor, for faith, or for love...only for justice. Only to expose the truth of this hideous, mangled existence we call a world."

"Your forehead protector looks like it symbolizes love, Minoru—if that isn't your personal truth, then what is?" Kakashi asked, unable to resist the tug of curiosity. The whimsical heart-shape adorning the opposing man's mask had nagged at him for a while, by then. Was it entirely an act? "Who carved it? Was it Minoru, or was it Susumu?"

"The heart is many things. It is love, it is life, and it is anger. To me, the heart is simply another weapon—to control a heart is to control the mind that its blood pumps into. Even now, my village is utterly faithful to me, because I have won their hearts entirely," Minoru flexed both hands, thrusting his arms forward and breaking off a few chunks of the floor around him, launching them as spinning discs toward Kakashi. Again, the Sharingan aided the cornered Jonin, and he escaped even the slightest graze by rolling himself in a precise pattern across the ground, leaving behind a few freshly sunken semicircles poking out from behind him in a smooth arch.

"Not all of them are so faithful, though...isn't that right?" Kakashi retorted, looking for an opening. While Minoru was holed up against his self-made wall, there was little to be done. A direct, full-bodied assault would surely fail, crushed between metal slabs. Kakashi thrust his hand toward the floor, charging up a powerfully dense Lightning Blade, then focused it into a more transferable shape—a blue wolf, crackling to life and making a jolting noise that echoed like an electric howl. Kakashi had it tethered to one hand, controlling it much like Minoru had controlled his metal, veering it from left to right to dodge the projectiles that Minoru sent to counter its approach.

The luminous beast reached its human target, and as its four legs built of pure energy sprung into a leap, Minoru outstretched a single hand and filled it with chakra that was of the wind nature. An unlucky match-up; as Kakashi recalled, even prior to Orochimaru's tinkering, Susumu had been a wind type. The sparking wolf was split down the middle with precision worthy of the highest level Hyuga, dispersing the flashy attack into sparkling dust as it was severed from Kakashi's will and control.

Minoru smirked, pleased with himself. "Was that your last attempt? Please do say you have something else to show me..." He began to step forward, and with a shrieking protest of his self-made prison, the curved wall proceeded behind him, following toward Kakashi and making their combat arena quite a bit smaller.

Clones and misdirection were meaningless before the Byakugan, and all of Kakashi's regular tools were rendered similarly useless by the unusual presence of Magnet Release. To top it off, Kakashi's primary element of lightning was cleanly countered by the wind of his opponent. The odds were thoroughly stacked against him, but with a quiet wish upon Obito's eye, Kakashi shut his lids and concentrated his chakra. "Just one more thing," he murmured, concentrating. Minoru paused, detecting a gargantuan surge of chakra being focused into Kakashi's left eye.

Kakashi opened his eyelid, simultaneously charging forward. With deft focus, he studied every possible angle, dodging each and every piece of steel thrown his way by Minoru. Shrapnel exploded and scattered around him as the entire room seemed to erupt with noise and clutter, becoming a two-man warzone that echoed infinitely against itself. The cacophony was deafening, and it interrupted Kakashi's concentration for just a brief enough moment to allow his right shoulder to be grazed by an errant shard. He felt the sting of pain as the hit struck him, but his hand was quick to reach in and fish the fragment out, letting some blood spill along with it as he cast it aside.

Kakashi depended on pure speed to outrun and outmaneuver Minoru; even with the latter's power-boost from the curse seal, Kakashi's maximum physical attributes had an effective edge over his opponent's. As the clashing forces came closer together, the commas in Kakashi's Sharingan began to morph, becoming longer and more jagged, taking on an entirely different pattern that resembled a bent, three-pronged shuriken. _Let this work, Obito, _Kakashi pleaded not only with himself, but also with the spirit of his dear and departed friend. Minoru was within arm's reach, and on all sides, steel beams and whirling pieces were all zeroing in on Kakashi.

Energy came into focus, and the air all around a single point began to distort. The sailing steel was sucked in, and the expanding singularity devoured all things in its radius. Minoru lost his cool and reeled in shock, feeling the powerful yank of the sudden black hole, abandoning his offensive efforts and making a desperate dive to his left, fleeing from Kakashi's line of sight and slamming into a muddy wall at the outer end of his own urgent scramble. The barrier that had been behind Minoru previously, his imprisoning curve, was made into nothingness in that single instant. Kakashi did not slow his momentum, projecting himself through the gaping hole with an exactly timed dive. His technique came to an end, and after the intense strain upon his eye came the stabbing pain in its socket that reached all the way through the optic nerve and rounded out at the crest of his left temple.

The sharpness of the discomfort was enough to force Kakashi into a single misstep, a momentary stagger, nearly losing his balance as he sprinted out. Minoru was quick to recover from his earliest stage of shock, but by the time he was back to his senses and no longer feeling his heart trying to fill his throat, Kakashi was outside of the room. The famed assassin was fast on his feet to the point of being _unfair._ Minoru fell abruptly back down onto his backside, feeling the life draining from his body. The curse mark receded, and with an enormous gasp, he clutched the place on his chest where it had originated from. He was sweating, exhausted, and actually quite frightened by what had just happened.

To think that Kakashi had been concealing such a ludicrously powerful technique all along...Minoru had not feared the man before that moment, but suddenly he was experiencing a sensation that seized him up and clamped his breaths as he tried to pull them in. Kakashi Hatake was an even more dangerous figure than the meticulous Minoru had ever anticipated. The floored once-Hyuga studied the hole to his immediate right, the gaping emptiness lingering there as if the remaining steel itself was in speechless shock. Its core wasn't merely blasted away—Minoru had felt the metal suddenly _vanish_, torn utterly from his control, and even his Byakugan could not tell exactly how it happened or, more importantly, where the displaced material could have ended up. By his best guess, an entire barricade, seventeen inches thick of steel, had simply ceased to be at the whim of a single blinking eye. Absolute destruction that utterly ignored its target's hardiness. That was what Minoru began to think of whenever his mind drifted to Kakashi Hatake.

The enemy was still inside the Truth Village, and for a fleeting moment, Minoru found himself hoping fearfully that his adversary would not choose to return and finish the job. Not since Orochimaru's operating table had the confident leader felt so near to death. It had come and gone in an instant, but the severe impression the vacuum of space left behind was bound to last. He picked his hand up from its lifeless slack at his side, studying his own fingers and flexing them. They still had a darkness to them, a slowly receding effect from using his cursed power. In his vast sight range that encompassed the village, he could see Kakashi's fluid sprint headed straight toward the perimeter barrier.

Nothing had ever broken through his enormous barrier before, and yet...in front of Kakashi's marvelous power, a massive segment of Minoru's energy field mimicked the vanishing steel. In one instant, Minoru could feel its completeness, and in the very next instant—a time span shorter than the sound of a clap—he could sense that a large chunk of its coverage had been ripped away by the same unexplainable phenomenon as before. Minoru watched somewhat helplessly from afar as the second coming of the White Fang bypassed his most powerful defensive layer, ripping it asunder as if it were a single sheet of wet rice paper and then slipping like a worm through the crack to vanish in the night. Minoru worked within his addled thoughts to quickly repair the unforeseeable damage, but his resolve had been shaken. Never mind the killer's reputation—the _reality_ of the living, breathing legend was all the more terrifying. Minoru felt beads of sweat form beneath his mask and drip down his cheeks, and he forced himself to swallow the lump that had swollen up in his throat. What kind of mythical monster was he actually dealing with?

* * *

If only Minoru had known of the toll that such a technique took on Kakashi's stamina. Beyond the barrier, the 'mythical monster' found himself struggling to remain standing. He swiftly dove into the ocean waters, sinking deep and holding his breath while he fought to endure the throes of pain in his skull. Never before had he been forced to use Kamui twice in such rapid succession while also in the heat of enemy territory. He had taken something of a serious gamble by attacking barrier, as well—there was no guarantee that his eye could circumvent such an ethereal, resolute dome, and yet he was doubly glad that his eye was so effective when he felt the secure embrace of water around his body. Moving targets were extremely difficult for him to capture at such an early stage of his Mangekyo training, but stationary objects were enough of a cinch that escaping from enclosed places was relatively easy. He refused to risk his life and the future of the Leaf on a gamble that he _might_ have been able to catch Minoru in a second shot, and so he went with the relatively sure thing.

He emerged from the water several hundred yards from where he had leaped into it, adrift within the soothing waves and keeping his head low, tilted back to ensure that his glimmering hair did not present an enticing target for wandering lookouts. He had emptied his vest of most tools to avoid giving Minoru something to abuse, but one thing he had kept was the mostly-plastic construction of his communications headset. Outside of the barrier, it should have worked again—he fished it out, glad that it was water-tight and designed to function under most conditions. He dialed it on, and the first thing he heard was a panting Tenzo's hurried voice. "Kakashi, I saw it all—but there's something rough happening out here, too—it's way too dangerous for either of us to stick around for long; I'm headed back to Monolith Point. Meet me there, and be careful."

Kakashi answered into the small mic, sighing as he held it close to his soaked mask. "Roger that; I'll be along once I've caught my breath." Clicking the headset off again, he floated along with the rise and fall of the fishless sea, looking straight up to the sky as a full moon stared back down at him. The night was oddly serene, especially in the wake of such a frantic escape. Essentially, Kakashi had failed his short-term mission, but at the very least he had been given a wealth of useful information to go on. With Minoru more or less figured out, the only X-factor that remained was the serpentine sneakiness of Mamban. Given how truthful the apparition of Susumu Hyuga had been, it seemed odd that he would deny leaving the oddly self-characteristic message about truth and falling leaves behind at the burned and slaughtered town. Had Mamban been the one to deliver such a threat to the Leaf after all? If so, how realistic was the possibility of an alliance between the two wild forces?

As the uncertain future continuously ticked closer, Kakashi found himself wishing for at least _some measure _of reinforcements. In that moment, he didn't particularly care who they happened to be.

* * *

Elsewhere, Tenzo had recently salvaged an ill-advised escape attempt from the Truth. They weren't exactly reinforcements, but they were interesting additions to their small roster, provided that they weren't deceiving him. "Poison?" Tenzo asked as they all hopped along the bare trees, having broken free of the reach of Mamban's soldiers. They were primarily focused around the Truth—Tenzo had been setting up surveillance seeds all around the area prior to being forced to make a run for it. Kaine and his bunch had kicked a hornet's nest, driving the docile soldiers who had been ignoring the wood user's presence to suddenly begin attacking. Perhaps they had faulty programming.

"That's right," Kaine said, keeping his eyes forward and his position to Tenzo's immediate left as they moved. "I've got suspicions that our leader's truth is a bit more complex than he's been letting us know."

Tenzo huffed, closing his eyes and leaning his head down. "Kaine, you've got no idea..."

Kaine perked a brow, not sure what was going on. Instead of needling further, he reached into a pouch on his deep blue vest and produced the flesh of a berry. It had been squished inside his pocket during his near-defeat, but it was still there. He also brought out a shell with nut bits still clinging to it. "I brought a couple of samples for you to look at. I figured that if anybody could tell me about poison, it'd be you."

Tenzo blinked. "Why me? I don't use poisons, myself," he began, but then he shrugged. "Anyway, sure, I can look at them for you. After what Kakashi ran into, though, I think poison might be the least of your worries."

Akemi piped up from behind, carrying the half-sleeping Rika over her shoulder. "I don't know who you are, and I damn sure don't know why Kaine trusts you, but you saved our lives back there." Her passenger was kicking her feet whenever they landed on a tree branch, but her body seemed to be on auto-pilot. Her eyes were glazed over a bit and her mouth was dropped open. "I should at least be grateful for that, so...Thank you, Tenzo. I'm Akemi Yamaguchi, and this is Rika Mori," Akemi finished, nodding her head toward the other.

"Good to meet you—you're wearing a truth headband, but Rika's not. Are you an older member?" Tenzo asked, taking advantage of the woman's opening up.

"The longest-living one, anyway," Akemi answered, shrugging her right shoulder while balancing Rika's arm over her left. "I know Master Minoru better than anybody there is, yeah?"

"I wouldn't be so sure," Tenzo muttered, nearly silent. He spoke up more loudly afterward, trying not to anger the wild card. "What's he really like, you think? I know on the surface he's the kind of man who's compassionate, trustworthy, and fair, but you've probably seen him on bad days. What do you think?" Even Kaine was a dangerous person to take on, but Tenzo hoped to ride the good will of their rescue all the way into town, and hopefully bribe them with some of Makoto's family stew to keep them docile for a while.

Akemi pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes. "Master Minoru doesn't have bad days, Tenzo," she said, nibbling her lower mouth between her evenly spaced bottom teeth. "His worst days are when he's forced to intervene in a squabble between villagers," she recalled, looking toward the sky. Through the naked trees, she could see a huge moon, wondering how beautiful the training field probably looked beneath its incandescent light. She was already feeling the hints of regret over leaving her village. She thought about turning back, but she knew that Rika was in no condition to make the return journey—not with so many enemies waiting to ambush them.

"Squabbles? Do the villagers fight one another very often?" Tenzo asked, recalling the battlefield he had seen through Kaine and then Kakashi as they passed it. "I mean, aside from during training."

"Not often, no; usually it's some rough little upstart who thinks he can take on the world," Akemi answered with the sound of a flute. Her voice matched her delicate appearance, but the overall tone was a tough one. She seemed almost like a living contradiction; pale and crystalline, gorgeous and frail, and yet she could knock a house down with a serious enough smack. Here and there, Tenzo was reminded of their current Hokage, but only in the barest sense. Akemi's voice pierced the night wind as it blew past the hastily traveling ears of the others. "Usually I can knock some sense into them, but if I'm not around and somebody's about to kill another, Master Minoru steps in and breaks them up. It doesn't happen much, but then the troublemakers get a good scolding."

"And does that scolding usually calm them down?" Tenzo asked, looking over to Kaine in thought.

Akemi nodded. "Every time. He's a genius, you know. His way of thinking is so beyond the limits of this world that I sometimes think he's an angel, or some kind of a god," she said, then chuckled. "Of course, I know he's just a mortal man with some peculiar jutsu, but when I'm alone at night, staring at the ceiling, I wish for him to be something more. I want him to be the ruler of the world—to finally stop all the death and hate."

Tenzo hummed, trying to resist the urge to tell the woman the truth. She seemed so content with what she thought she knew—it was best to let her keep dreaming until Kakashi arrived to more charismatically talk her down. Tenzo had never felt very good at diplomacy—his standard method for getting a team to cooperate was to throw them in a cage together and let them get used to themselves. "It sounds like he's very important to you, Miss Yamaguchi," Tenzo answered, finally.

"Not if Kakashi Hatake just killed him," Akemi answered, the first hint of bitterness sounding in her sweet speech. "Just tell me if he's alive or not, Tenzo; you don't have to say more. I just want to know that the Truth is still going to be safe, or that it's not going to be there when I try to go home. One or the other, Tenzo; that's the only thing I need to hear."

"That's just it, Akemi—I don't really know what's going to happen to your village; I don't really know if he's truly still alive," Tenzo did his best to dance around the question, but his new 'friend' wasn't having it.

"Yes or no, Tenzo—did Kakashi Hatake kill my Master Minoru?" Akemi had a stern flex in her brow, and although her hands were supporting Rika, she flexed her fingers tightly and the girl in her grasp winced a bit. Kaine was silent through it all, simply listening to the conversation and absorbing what he could.

"No, Akemi. Kakashi didn't kill Minoru—but that doesn't mean he's still alive as you know him. As I said, it's best to wait for my partner to come back. He's on his way already—we're going to meet up in Monolith Point."

At that, Rika's eyes regained some color and she shook her head, speaking in a husky, unprepared whisper. "We're going home?" she asked, looking over to Akemi.

"No, Rika, we're going to Monolith Point...home is the Truth, remember?" Akemi replied with a subdued caution.

"I don't want to go back there; I miss home..." Rika said, burying her head against her sensei's shoulder and sighing pleasantly. It was difficult to tell which one was 'there' and which was 'home,' but by the time anybody thought to ask, she had fallen asleep, with slow, even breaths of warmth tickling Akemi's shoulder. Akemi rolled her eyes and hoisted Rika up more completely around her shoulders, one arm over each side with her legs wrapped around the waist.

"Anyway...how far away are we? I've never seen this place," Akemi requested, her face turning mildly red for some unknown reason.

"Not much further now," Kaine said, interrupting Tenzo's attempt to speak. The ocean-haired barely-adult could see forward, and he had been to the place enough times to know. "We'll see its central monument peeking up over the horizon pretty soon."

Tenzo nodded, not seeming very offended by the interruption. "He's right. It should only be a few more minutes. It's late at night; most of the residents are going to be asleep. Try to be quiet when we get there; can I trust you guys to do that?"

Kaine nodded, and Akemi huffed. "Maybe," she said, looking to her left and trying to avoid eye contact. She didn't seem happy.

"What's got you in such a huffy mood?" Kaine teased, trying to put some distance between Akemi and the change of scenery. He was certain that she was having regrets about leaving their village behind, but he was also hoping that he could serve as an anchor to keep her mind off of the implications. He was like her brother, and he tried to act that way whenever he could pull it off. "I'm sure Medo will look after the students we left behind, at least until we get back," he suggested, taking a guess at what was bothering her. Truthfully, Kaine wasn't certain that he wanted to go back at all. Akemi did, though; it didn't take close attention to realize that much.

"Nothing, Hamasaki, I'm just hungry, yeah?" Akemi answered, trying to put on her usually self-sure expression. There were regrets in her eyes, though—Kaine had always noticed the sadness that tainted those mint green irises. It was easier to see on that night, though. He could usually feel the sorrow as a dull ache within her stare, but then it was pointed, more like a needle. He knew that it was something more longstanding than hunger that had made such an impact.

"Good, then. You'll finally get to eat something _real _again; no more berries and nuts for us," Kaine said, keeping himself lighthearted. He had his own regrets but refused to dwell on them. Darkness stayed in his heart—he was constantly at war with his urges. He wanted to kill things to satisfy his feral thirst for compensation; he wanted to take revenge upon the world for the brutality of his childhood. Every time his stomach growled, he remembered a frail little body that carried a spirit too big for its muscle, and the things he was forced to endure for the sake of surviving.

He remembered walking over crushed glass and refusing to care; his feet were scarred to the present day by such desperation. He hunted animals, robbed corpses, and invaded homes to feed himself in those days. It seemed somewhat ironic that he was then willfully choosing not to eat. He had a tough facade on during his stay in the Truth, ever since returning from Kakashi and Tenzo's hospital bed and prison—but he hadn't eaten a single thing inside the barrier. Kakashi had made him suspicious of his master during their brief encounter in the surrounding woods. Also an ironic turn, given that Tenzo made sure that even the grimy hospital food was ultimately a trap.

"For now," Akemi clarified after a while. "No more berries and nuts _for now,_" she emphasized a second time. "I'm still going back, no matter what Tenzo finds out, and no matter what Kakashi has to say," she said stubbornly. "The Truth Village is my home, and my home is under siege. I won't just abandon it."

Kaine nodded, feeling the same way. "You're right, Akemi; we won't abandon our home to its fate...one way or the other. I will see the Village Hidden by Truth as a truly free settlement, no matter how long it takes...and no matter who I need to _deal with _to make it happen."

"We're here," Tenzo announced, breaking up the discussion and putting a finger over his lips. They had been away from the village for a few days, and so silence was a necessary thing upon approach. At first glance, there was nothing out of the ordinary. A few lights flickered through windows, either lanterns that were left on overnight or people who were waking up fresh in the early morning. The moon was still high, but the sun would also be peeking out in short order. The village seemed sleepy and cozy, which Tenzo took to be a good sign. "Alright, let's make for the inn. Kakashi and I are still paying for a room, so we'll just use that as our base for now."

"Base?" Kaine asked, skeptical. "How long do you think the three of us are going to be here?"

Tenzo shook his head, refusing to give a straight answer. "Wait for Kakashi. Like I said before: a few poisoned berries are the least of our worries, right now**."**

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought by leaving a review.**


	20. Because I Trust You

**Here's more!**

* * *

Minoru's thoughts had been consumed by the eerie, consuming nothingness that seemed to drag all things to their doom; could it really have come from Kakashi Hatake? It was difficult to imagine such a force at all, but to imagine it in the hands of an enemy was disheartening. In those few precious moments, Minoru's heart was beating with something that went beyond vengeance, something beyond hate—it was almost certainly terror; fear of death. He wanted to live to see his ambitions bear fruit, and yet he had always told himself that it was alright if he were to die—he could become a martyr, and his people would carry on in his name. Why was he afraid of being assassinated? Belatedly, Minoru's attention was torn away from his existential dilemma, as his barrier was also bypassed legitimately at nearly the same time that Kakashi had ripped it open. He caught a brief glimpse of the departing squad, recognizing all three of them by name—his "right and left hands", and arguably his _most_ _promising_ new member. The distraction of battling his guest could not have come at a more inconvenient time.

"Damn it," Minoru muttered to himself, forming signs and spawning a clone before him as he was slumped against a muddy wall. While his true self was ragged and disheveled, the clone was clean-cut and regal, still wearing the robe of deep blue that signified his tranquility. "I expected as much from Kaine, but I am profoundly disappointed in the two of _you_," he said aloud, as if they were in the room with him. The only reply he received was the ghostly echo of his own voice; there was nobody there to heed him. The chamber had been ripped into shambles by his copious use of magnet style, and though he was still out of breath, he prepared to send his clone out in order to take care of his frequent, day to day business. The pure darkness and sheer size of his chamber were, when combined, ample enough to conceal the depths of the ruins, but his pride deemed it necessary to fix the damage regardless. Unfortunately, he had reached his limit with the curse seal for the time being, and so he was left in helpless exhaustion to observe the result of his own destructive rampage. He had nothing to show for it, either, aside from a new phantom to be afraid of.

His intentions were simple—win Kakashi's support against Mamban, and hopefully secure his power for use against the entire Leaf as well. Minoru thoughtfully relived the pitiful night's events: he had elected to open the barrier for Kakashi's stolen password; he then allowed Kakashi to easily dispatch the first clone, and had concocted a ruse that would show urgent desperation, seating himself with an 'unbreakable' hand sign upon his rusty throne...he convincingly altered his own appearance to garner the opponent's sympathy—or, in the event of failure, an opportunity for a surprise attack. He had even allowed himself to be unmasked in order to sell the illusion of helplessness-the Sharingan would have made it useless to attempt to conceal his identity, ultimately.

Truthfully, Minoru's barrier existed without significant chakra drain, and his body was in sublime health, nourished consistently by the self-replenishing energy of his curse mark. The plan was perfectly simple and he considered it to be flawless: in his self-assured mind, there were only two potential outcomes. Kakashi would either kneel in servitude or crumple down as a corpse, but one way or the other, the copy ninja would be low on the ground before his superior—Minoru had never imagined a scenario where he would find himself so thoroughly humiliated, curled into a corner and feverishly inventing new, nightmarish faces for the enemy to wear beneath his mask.

Even worse, he had sacrificed his attention over the village to focus on the confrontation. His senses had been hijacked by his fight, and Kakashi's escape had been such a shocking moment that Minoru had been incapable of recognizing that Kaine Hamasaki, Akemi Yamaguchi, and Rika Mori had all left his safe nest. Considering Minoru's recent run of luck, and because they were so valuable to him, they had all three likely been killed or captured by Mamban's puppets. His village's battle strength had been nearly halved by their departure, and the odds were to be tipped ever greater out of his favor if they had been successfully branded by Mamban's controlling seals. Despite it all, he silently congratulated himself for his previous wisdom, relishing in a small victory—Medo and his promising students yet remained. The sacrifice of sending two of Akemi's under-performing pupils had been well worth the preservation of Medo and his more-necessary forces.

Minoru's fresh clone departed, sharing its creator's mind and knowing precisely why it had been produced. As Minoru watched an idealized version of himself calmly walk the long distance toward the exit of his lair, he heaved a thick sigh. Although his barrier was holding steady—barring, of course, the earlier pair of unforeseeable mishaps—there was still a pressing issue. There was no more food left in the village. Having no food meant that there was no reliable delivery method for his particularly persuasive brand of employee retention—he would need to secure nourishment for his subjects somehow, and although he had already mentioned it in passing to Akemi, he felt a bitter taste forming under his tongue to accompany the disgust toward his own gathering thought: Mamban's twisted alliance had just graduated from being a tantalizing proposition to being a cruel necessity.

* * *

With Rika passed out on her shoulder, Akemi felt uneasy walking into the limits of Monolith Point. The last time she had entered a neighboring village in the dark, she lost two of her students and almost lost the third. Though she trusted Kaine and had seen Tenzo's power first hand, their arrival had an unpleasant association in her mind. She turned her head to look at Rika, and then pursed her lips in a frown. "This is where you come from, eh?" She asked, and received no answer save for a soft, evenly spaced breath and a little bit of sleepy drool on her shoulder. "...Right," she punctuated flatly, looking then to the backs of Kaine and Tenzo, who had wandered on ahead without her.

She took her first step out of the protective shrubbery that bordered the town, and her booted foot felt stiff against the dry dirt; she missed the feeling of leaping through the trees already. She felt a longing for the unbeaten paths of her home village, or at least for the dirty wilderness that surrounded her in all directions except for straight ahead. For the first time since she was a starving child, she felt uncertain of time; more specifically, of how much time she had left. She wondered what the world would be like when she opened her eyes the next morning; she wondered as well if she would even _awaken _from her next slumber. Within the Truth Village, she had felt safe and strong—out there, in the savage world that some would have called 'civilization,' she was in constant danger of losing that safety. Just how far had Kaine Hamasaki fallen for the cozy village; how deeply did he really desire a life of weakness? Akemi vowed to herself that she would keep distant from the lethargy that Minoru had always warned her about.

Kaine and Tenzo were waiting at the door to what she assumed was the inn; the door was slightly ajar and a dim orange candle light peeked out along its edges. She hurried up with Rika supported over her back and shoulders, trying not to jostle her passenger too badly. Rika needed the rest; it was difficult for a beginner to summon up two elemental techniques in the midst of a fierce battle, not to mention doing it on an empty stomach. Akemi reached the door, and she looked at the once-sturdy wood roof above. The place was older than she expected, and she pondered for a moment. "Rika's sister is here, isn't she?" Akemi asked, looking to Kaine with that impish, infuriating smirk.

Kaine hummed, nodding. "That's right; her name is Makoto. Please try to be respectful...I know that's difficult for you, but do it for me," he said to Akemi with a wink.

Akemi huffed in return, shaking her head and raising her brows with accusation. "Do you have any idea how silly it sounds when the infamous Kaine Hamasaki, himself, tells somebody else to be respectful?"

Tenzo chimed in, putting his hand on the shoulder of the two conscious guests, reminding them of his presence. "It does sound strange, doesn't it?" he asked, glad to join in on the friendly banter. He had expected things to be much more difficult. "Now, we can talk more inside, but I don't like the idea of being out in the open after what we just escaped from."

Akemi nodded her agreement as if she couldn't possibly concur quickly enough. "Damn right," she said, looking to Kaine with her tongue hanging out derisively. "Let's go meet your girlfriend; you think she's awake?"

Kaine sneered. "Hopefully not," he said, opening the door and taking a step inside. "I'd hate for her to have to meet _you _this early in the morning."

"So...you're not _denying_ that she's your girlfriend anymore?" Akemi teased as she stepped into the warm, coddling shelter of the inn.

Kaine didn't blush like he could have, but his eyes widened slightly and his jaw tightened. He had been caught in a slip of the tongue. "You're such a _kid_, Akemi" he growled, but he poignantly didn't deny anything.

"I'll take that as a yes," Akemi said, as if singing a song. To her, the comfortable tavern smelled like apprehension. It was too cozy; too simple. It was the kind of place that almost always spelled trouble for a weary traveler who was desperate for food and sleep. Then again, she would never claim to be particularly well-rounded when it came to trust issues—she was probably just being unduly paranoid. The whole place seemed like an unrealistic scab of peace on such an otherwise smooth, dependably harsh world. It didn't mesh with what Minoru had always told her, nor did it coincide well with what she had seen on her recently failed mission.

Tenzo began to walk up the stairs that were tucked away in the corner of the main lobby. It was empty, aside from his group. Makoto and Rika's parents must have been in bed for hours by that time of morning. He looked over his shoulder, one hand on a wooden railing and the other beckoning the bickering almost-siblings to come along. "We're not in the room yet; can we please focus?"

Kaine grumbled at the dusty blonde girl beside him, but he agreed inwardly that it was best to get into someplace with a locked door and thick walls. He led the way, and his companion followed behind, toting Rika over her shoulders and holding two flimsy legs around her own waist. The steps were creaky and worn, so if they weren't noticed before, they were by then. A door opened upstairs with an ominous creak of the hinges, and feathery footsteps sounded against the wood to approach energetically. They had a sound like a pitter patter, and not the solid thunk of shoes. Tenzo and Kaine both drew the same conclusion before the quietly-noisy presence revealed itself—Makoto's bare feet.

She was at the top of the staircase, looking down with a tilted head. "Oh, it's Mister Tenzo," Makoto said, then looked over that man's shoulder to see a familiar blue mop. "Oh! And Mist—I mean, and Kaine!" she said, more enthusiastically. She waved her hand quickly back and forth, greeting him with a big, welcoming grin. Her short, straight, deep black hair was unwrapped for the first time any of them had actually seen, probably having just woken up from bed—she was dressed in a loose night gown, silky white and shimmery as it hung daintily against her rounded shoulders. "And..." Makoto continued tentatively, seeing Akemi's face—she noted the headband, knowing that it was the same style as Kaine's, though with a very different symbol.

"That's Akemi Yamaguchi," Kaine said, remembering that he had mentioned her to Makoto once before. "She's just visiting, I think," he added as he looked behind himself to behold the porcelain face of playful judgment. Akemi was looking up at Makoto with flexing cheeks, as if trying to figure out the appeal of such a simple-faced young girl, tilting her head left and right and almost forgetting that she was wearing the subject's unconscious sister like a backpack.

"Ohhh," Makoto said, her mouth forming into a broad, surprised circle. "She's _so_ pretty..." Makoto whispered, a mixture of admiration and jealousy.

The judgment was called off after the utterance of those three simple words. "Okay, I think I like this one, Hamasaki," Akemi joked with a sly smirk, her green eyes cutting over to Kaine.

Kaine sighed gently at the quip, rubbing his hand along his forehead as he felt how exhausted he was. "Yeah, well, Akemi may be pretty, but beneath it all she's a real _bear_," he said, looking up at Makoto with a genuinely appreciative smile. Whether he had expected a warm greeting or not, he was glad that she was the first face he saw upon entering the town. Unlike his return to the Truth, his arrival back in Monolith Point asserted that nothing had changed. For that moment, he felt more like he was _returning_ to his home, rather than running away from it.

After a lengthy, contemplative silence, Tenzo spoke: "We didn't mean to wake you up, Makoto. We apologize for the late return, and we're very grateful for your open door; it has been a long night," he said, caught on the staircase in the middle of the conversation. Makoto had accidentally blocked his path, and then she had gotten so absorbed in greeting Kaine that she must have overlooked her own obstruction. As Tenzo thought about the girl and the inn, something hit him, and he looked back over his shoulder toward the sleeping woman laying over Akemi's back. "Wait, didn't you say her name is Rika Mori?" he asked, as if he had somehow missed the important name before that.

Makoto blinked, then squinted her eyes, looking at the wild, dangling mess of curls that framed the top of the unseen face. "Rika...?" She began, stepping off the top of the stairs and squeezing past Tenzo, crowding the whole flight awkwardly as she clambered down to brush the curls aside. Akemi leaned back a little, trying to avoid being knocked away by the over-eagerness of Rika's younger sister. Makoto frowned, recognizing the exhausted, lightly bruised face of her previously-missing sibling. She also saw a familiar scar; a lingering reminder. "Where are her sleeves...? Is she okay?"

"She'll be alright," Kaine answered in as reassuring a way as he could while struggling to twist and talk on the slanted staircase. "We ran into a bit of trouble on our way back here...she put up a good fight, but we all would've been dead if not for Tenzo stepping in. We kind of owe him...well, we actually owe him our _lives, _but for now we're just going to hear him out upstairs."

Tenzo cleared his throat, crossing his arms and taking on a stance of authority. "I was just doing what's right," he said, deciding to milk the moment. "It's what the Leaf stands for," he added, looking to Kaine and Akemi pointedly—thanks to Kakashi's encounter, Tenzo knew precisely what Minoru stood for, and he wanted to be sure that Minoru's soon-to-be ex-disciples had a clear idea of what one of their alternatives was.

"That's not what Master Minoru tells me," Akemi bit back, still not convinced. She was guarded, despite her casual tone just seconds earlier. "He tells me that you're all liars," she said, a coldness seeping into a voice that would normally melt snow. "He taught me that you'd do or say _anything_ to turn somebody like me into a slave."

Makoto was still standing directly beside Akemi, brushing her fingers through Rika's hair and poking at her sister's forehead. The sudden shift in the stranger's tone had stunned the younger girl, leading her to take a step back, blushing. "Uhm," Makoto began. "Do you want a separate room from the guys, Miss Akemi?" she asked, trying to soothe the rising tension.

Akemi took a long moment to let steam out of her ears before snapping back into reality. The harshness faded beneath a warm smile given to Makoto, followed by a graceful shake of her head. "No, we'll all stick together for now," she said with sweetness. "I can't afford to let either of these guys out of my sight," she clarified with playful implications, but despite the easy words, there was a depth of hate in her stare when she looked at Tenzo and the symbol upon his forehead.

Makoto tucked her hands behind her back, turning to ascend the stairs and reach the upper level hallway, flipping back around once she was on stable flooring. "No, no, I insist...I think you and Rika should take a separate room, free of charge," she said, looking shyly toward Kaine with an ulterior motive. Tenzo was there as well, but he wasn't her highest priority in the light of recent developments. "Mist—I mean, just Kaine," she corrected, "and Mister Tenzo both snore _really_ loud," she said, cupping a hand over the right side of her mouth as if sharing a secret—that is, if she were sharing a very loud, poorly kept secret. "And oh boy, don't get me started on Mister Kakashi," she added, poking her pinkies into the canals of her ears to emphasize. "Worst one of all."

Akemi narrowed her eyes, finding, at last, _something_ to be suspicious about. Before she could say anything, Tenzo spoke up impulsively. "You know, maybe Makoto has a point," he said, looking back at Akemi and trying to intercept whatever resistance she was cooking up. The room's soothing air had gotten thick, and a light breeze would be enough to snap the tension if he didn't do something to defuse it quickly. "Akemi and Rika can both sleep in the room next to ours, right?" Tenzo asked to Makoto, who nodded her confirmation. "We'll be able to hear each other if we need to..." he looked at Akemi directly. "Why don't you get Rika to bed? She looks beat."

Kaine and Makoto were silent, both looking at Akemi. A vein looked like it wanted to pop out of her forehead beneath her protector, and her teeth were threatening to snap under the firm clamp of her jaw. She eventually took in a huge, deep breath through her pale nose, and then sighed. "You know what? Fine. _Fine_...I _do_ hate snoring, so fine," she rationalized. Akemi knew there was more to the awkward suggestion, but she wasn't exactly sure who had the real motive to make it happen. She assumed that it was best to let things play out, and to stay especially wary; if she could manage to catch somebody in the middle of foul play, then Hamasaki would finally see for himself that the outside world could never be _their _world. He would realize that the only place they _all_ belonged was back with Master Minoru.

"Anyway," Tenzo said, glad to see things settle down again, even if it only looked that way on the surface. The highs and lows were giving him a headache, and he couldn't wait for Kakashi to come back and take the diplomatic responsibilities off of his shoulders. "That arrangement's only going to apply for sleeping. Before you go to bed yourself, Miss Yamaguchi, you should come to our room and wait for Kakashi's return with us. He'll be back in an hour or two."

"Fine by me," Akemi answered warily, following Tenzo and Kaine up the stairs as they finally got moving. Makoto showed her to a door and gave her a key, which she accepted with a nod. Before she opened the door, she put a hand to her hip and checked that her knife's handle was in easy reach—it was, and so she entered the room and looked around thoroughly. It was a simple place, but it was vastly more elaborate than her home in the Truth—it was closer in form and quality to Kaine's quarters, obviously built with skill and care. She carried Rika to the single, large bed and gently eased her onto the plush mattress. Akemi couldn't resist placing her own hand against the soft surface of the cushion, feeling how unbearably soothing the fabric was against her fingertips.

She couldn't recall _ever_ having felt a bed like that one, and the alluring possibility of plopping down on top of it, of letting the tense aches and pains melt out of her muscles, joints, and skin, was strong. She resisted the temptation, leaving its embrace entirely to Rika as she pulled back on the accompanying sheet and then billowed it over her sleeping student to settle it gently along her slender frame. Akemi heard the faint, peaceful sound of sleep from below, glimpsing beneath the battered, worn exterior to see that Rika was as comfortable as she could possibly be. Akemi reached down, brushing her hand across Rika's forehead and smiling sadly. Unlike how her sensei felt, the curly-headed beauty looked like she _belonged _in such a luxurious place; a place far removed from death, famine, war, and slavery.

"You sleep tight, you hear? We're going to have a _long_ talk about this place when you wake up..." Akemi whispered to Rika's ear, and the sleeper furrowed her brows as if experiencing a tense dream. Teacher watched student for another long minute, and then turned on her heel to walk out, closing the door and making absolutely certain that it was locked behind her, slipping the key into the simple pocket on the side of her pants. She looked to the next door, knocking along its frame. Kaine opened it up, and Akemi peered in to see that Tenzo and Makoto were both further inside.

"How is she?" Kaine asked, seating himself next to Makoto at a small table, each of them nestled into separate but close-together wooden chairs. Makoto had a suture kit of some kind, and she was busily sewing up some of Kaine's untended wounds from the earlier conflict. Stray kunai and shuriken, bits of rock and rubble; all sorts of minor things had gotten through their triad formation, and when Akemi looked at her own sleeveless arms, she noticed a few fresh bruises and scabbed-over cuts.

"She's fine," Akemi replied, scanning around the room—rather than taking a seat in a chair of her own, she stepped just to the left of where she had entered, leaning her backside against the wall and peering at the entrance. "Sleeping like a baby, in fact."

"She's always been a heavy sleeper," Makoto chimed in, threading a stitch through Kaine's arm, gently tugging at the thick cord before snipping it off with tiny scissors. "Who did this to you guys, huh?" she asked, looking to Kaine, then Tenzo, and then finally to Akemi with hesitation.

"We don't know for certain," Tenzo said, rotating his shoulder and popping a joint within as he huddled over something in the corner, occupying his own chair. "Kakashi and I have a best guess, but that's all: we think that they're working for somebody named Mamban—unfortunately, we don't know anything concrete about him beyond a few hunches and some word of mouth."

Kaine gave off a grunt, and at first it seemed like Makoto's needle had pricked him the wrong way, but the tone of his voice revealed the source. "Mamban...that's the name of the guy who—" He drifted off before he finished, looking at Makoto as she busily sewed him up. Her big, innocent brown eyes were settled on his war-torn blues, and he couldn't bring himself to say it while she seemed so blissfully content with things the way they were.

"...the name of the guy who _murdered_ Mako and Fiona," Akemi said bluntly, free of such tender concerns.

Makoto slipped up, accidentally jabbing her needle straight into Kaine's bicep, bringing out a tense _hurk_ from her patient, and her expression darkened. She shivered out a few whimpering words. "Mako...and Fiona? They're...?"

"_Dead_," Akemi finished harshly, looking Makoto straight on. "They were weak, so they were killed. Hamasaki was too busy eating stew and flirting with _you,_ so he wasn't able to protect them from...No, that's not fair to say..." Akemi stopped talking, then sighed. She softened a bit, realizing that her bitterness was misplaced. Although they didn't look perfectly alike, she couldn't help but see part of Rika in Makoto's features, and the recognition made her more keenly aware of what she said. She focused on the true source of her agitation, instead. "What I mean to say is...Mamban acts as an agent of the Leaf, and _that_ is what his village stands for: they'll murder anybody who gets in their way, so don't you _dare_ let Tenzo feed you some tripe about 'doing what's right'..." She picked under her nails, doing her best to seem detached from the vivid emotion flying free from her throat. "They really don't care about people like us."

"Now, _hold on_ a minute," Kaine said, recovering nicely from the deep prod of the silver needle in his arm. Makoto's sudden mistake drew a trickle of blood, but she dabbed at it with a cotton ball, trying to distract herself from the crushing news. Though she was glad to see her sister, she was trembling with the loss of two of her friends. "Tenzo saved all three of our lives...why would he bother to do that if he was working with those bastards to begin with?" Kaine asked, hoping to bring Akemi to her senses.

"Maybe Tenzo's a damned _traitor_," Akemi retorted, filled with seething anger. It was easy to bottle it all up when she felt safe and protected, but without Minoru's steady presence, and without the powerful barrier, she felt more exposed than she ever had. The pressure was leading her to forget about applying the brakes to her train of thought. "Maybe he only wants to _use_ _us_ to kill Mamban; that way, he can take over the whole army; we don't know a _damned thing_ about this wood guy," Akemi swung her arm out, her open hand pointing toward Tenzo, who was seated at a desk overlooking the berry and nut samples provided to him by Kaine.

"We may not know_ everything_, but I _do_ know that he saved _my_ life, _your_ life, _and _Rika's life," Kaine stood up, a needle and thread dangling helplessly out of his flesh as Makoto reeled back in surprise. The argument was getting stronger. "He risked _himself_ to do it—you saw the kind of monster that Mamban is; you experienced it firsthand. Do you think it's easy to fight the authority of a man like him? Maybe what you _didn't_ see was when he melted his _own_ soldier into the dirt for failing to kill Mast—" he hesitated, then sternly revised and completed his sentence: "for failing to kill the leader of the Truth Village."

"Say his name, Hamasaki—say _Master Minoru_," Akemi said gravely, clenching her fists tight at her sides.

"He's _not_ my master anymore; all the brainwashing, all the poison, all the _bullshit_—it's wearing off, and now I see the _real_ truth. I don't want to kill any more of my _own people _for that bastard's amusement!" Kaine's voice was raised, shaking the room with its ferocity. Makoto plugged her ears with her pinkies, this time without the humor. She clenched her eyes shut and scooted her chair away.

"He_ tests_ us because it makes us _strong_, you filthy little ingrate!" Akemi took a step forward, shouting to match her rival. The vein that had been threatening to appear was now throbbing fully on her forehead, just beneath the lining of her headband. "If you can't appreciate the sacrifices he has made for us, then why don't you just go to the Leaf and _never come back_?"

"If you're so sure that he cares about you—about _all of us—_then why did you even _come_ _with me_?" Kaine shouted back. "Why, then, did you feel compelled to lie to your precious _master_?"

"Obviously it's because I'm _stupid enough_ to trust you at your word, Hamasaki—seriously, you're the one who almost got us all killed in the first place by convincing us to leave Master Minoru's protection! Why should I believe that you didn't plan this whole thing from the beginning with your new _best pal!?_" Akemi once again pointed to Tenzo, and Tenzo once again stayed quiet, fiddling away at his work.

"Do you think I would do that to you? Do you really think I would conspire to betray my _only family?_" Kaine was livid by that point, unable to even believe what he was hearing. He was barely an inch of nerve away from starting an all-out fistfight.

Akemi's fury had deflated a bit when she considered what Kaine said, but she was still frustrated beyond belief. "Why did you even_ tell me_, Hamasaki? Why didn't you just sneak along on your merry way without making me doubt _everything I've ever known?_"

"Because I made a sincere promise that I would _never_ leave you alone toface thatfate," Kaine thrashed, stepping around the table and getting up close to Akemi. He pointed a hard finger to her torso, prodding her beneath the ribs. "I'm not going to let you die on his behalf just because you can't imagine a world without his _constant control! _All I've ever wanted for you is _**freedom!**_" Kaine panted breathlessly, his nostrils flaring vigorously with every hard inhale. Akemi shuddered in response to his nearness and his chastising words, fighting the blindingly powerful urge to knock him unconscious with a punch to the nose. Somewhere deep and recessed, she actually thought he was being rather sweet, in his own way—but that didn't change the sincere ferocity of her disagreement. It did, however, click something in her mind.

Akemi was breathing heavily like Kaine was, with her bosom rising and falling unsteadily. As the argument reached its peak and slowly began to simmer down, Akemi focused on the sensations upon her. The pressure of Kaine's finger in place beneath her chest was annoying, but also strangely familiar. It was one of those things that made her feel like she was still at home; in the lingering quiet, she remembered the argument that erupted all those years ago when a bratty little tyke named Kaine Hamasaki broke her very first self-built piece of furniture.

It was a plain chair, barely held together by wobbly sticks and strings made of tied grass. He had broken it on purpose with a rock, and she knew it, but he tried to play coy and apologetic. He had a cute, unassuming baby face back then; once he had been fed up from near starvation, he filled out nicely. When she called him out on it, and they inevitably came to blows, he had the same strong poke, even as a kid—he had poked her in that same place, that irritating region just below the curve of her ribs. The memory brought an earnest, salty tear to the corner of Akemi's eye, and a quiver into her breaths.

She steadily brought her hand up from her side, undoing her clenched fist and instead grasping tightly around Kaine's wrist. She winced internally when she pulled his hand away, moving it aside and removing the pressure of his touch. She missed the mild pain, but she knew that everything was going to be okay, even without it. Kaine blinked a few times, catching the glisten in Akemi's eyes, and then he rather suddenly felt both of her firm, bruised arms capture him from the base of his back to the top of his shoulders. It was a tight embrace, and her warm upper body pressed quite thoroughly to his as she hugged him close. He gradually slipped his arms around her shoulders, tugging her into a brotherly squeeze.

Akemi whispered, resting her chin on Kaine's shoulder. "I-I'm sorry, Hamasaki," she said, the air struggling to flow through her lips. "You know I love you, right?" she added, more quietly as that single tear finally found its way out, rolling down her cheek to soak into Kaine's blue vest.

Kaine nodded, patting her on the upper back and closing his eyes. "Yeah, I know—and I love you too, Akemi," he returned. They both took simultaneously deep breaths, sighing together in a prolonged way before the embrace came to an amicable end and Kaine took a step back. Meanwhile, Makoto was blushing ultra-bright and looking down at the floor, keeping her hands subdued in her lap as she dwelled on the night's constant surprises.

Kaine turned away from Akemi, moving to gingerly sit back down in his previously departed chair beside Makoto. He noticed that she seemed rather glum, but trying not to get carried away about it, since she had just learned about the deaths of two friends. He made a call for peace: "Let's just _try_ to stay calm until Kakashi comes back...Tenzo says that things aren't the way we've always thought they were, and I've kind of had that feeling for a long time, now..."

Tenzo seemed to take the entirety of the dispute rather well, all things considered. He didn't speak a word in his own defense, not even when he was postulated to be a traitor early on. He was probably tuning them out completely as they debated with one another—if they came to blows, he would step in, but otherwise, he was treating them like a brother and sister. It was healthy for them to fight it out. His only nagging concern was for the well-being of the other people in the otherwise cozy hotel—and Makoto in particular. Although Tenzo could see the embrace and its words for what they were—a reconciliation of siblings, more than anything—he got the sense that Makoto took it the wrong way, and that Kaine was too oblivious to realize it on the spot. Hopefully that simple misunderstanding wouldn't blow up in anybody's face, later. Tenzo always preferred it when there was a happy ending.

Misunderstanding or no, Makoto was at least outwardly glad to have Kaine seated beside her again, and she took the comically dangling needle from its place against his arm and continued to seal him up, though she hesitated for a moment before doing so. The tension in the air had dissolved and become a fluid relaxation, despite potentially unresolved questions. The two had probably been sitting on that fight for quite some time, by then, and while the timing wasn't perfect, it was better than letting themselves boil over during battle. Pure silence took over the room, and a whistling wind squeezed through the door downstairs as the only distraction.

A sudden creak sounded through the room, and both Kaine and Akemi reached for weapons at their hips, turning to regard the window against the far wall. Tenzo didn't seem worried, and it was probably because he had felt Kakashi's return through his seeds, and there he was, perched against the windowframe.

"Well, this is unexpected..." the copy ninja said, humming thoughtfully. "It's good to see you again, Kaine...and who's this?" he asked, looking to Akemi.

"She's my, uh...sister, actually—she's Akemi Yamaguchi," Kaine answered with something of a confused halt, seemingly feeling some disbelief in the wake of the returning Jonin's easy-going attitude. "Makoto's sister is here, too," Kaine added on, looking to the thick wall that separated the active, lively room from the one where Rika was hopefully still sleeping peacefully.

"Good," Kakashi said, climbing fully into the room and shutting the window behind himself. "By now, I'm sure Tenzo has told you that something is very, very wrong with the Village Hidden by Truth. Also, knowing Tenzo, he's going to make me tell you by myself," he added, glancing in a bored way toward his partner, who rubbed the back of his brown head of hair, a bit embarrassed.

"Should I go get Rika?" Makoto asked, finishing up the last treatments for Kaine's copious wounds.

"Let her sleep," Akemi answered, still jittery from the adrenaline of her outburst, as well as the sight of Kakashi Hatake himself. Even to those who existed only within the Truth Village, the man was a pure legend. To see such a level-headed, unassuming man in typical Jonin garb was a little bit underwhelming against her expectations. She remained defiant, even so: "Just tell us your lies while I'm still willing to listen," she said, keeping that skepticism and putting a hand on her knife's hilt.

"Believe me, or don't," Kakashi said, aiming his mostly-covered face and head toward Akemi, his single eye penetrating deep into her insecurities. Akemi could feel that he was the real deal, even though he had done nothing to prove it yet. "Minoru is a masterful liar, and I won't blame you one bit if you find my news to be too difficult to swallow," Kakashi said, looking to the unimpressed faces of Kaine and Akemi. They had probably expected to hear something like that, although that didn't mean that he was going to be believed.

Kakashi checked both of their expressions carefully, ensuring that they were paying close attention. They certainly were: Kaine and Akemi were hanging on his every word, tracking the flow of every one of his gradual breaths. "Minoru is _not_ the truth...as I have seen for myself and as Tenzo can confirm, he's not even _blind_. His true name is Susumu Hyuga, and I am declaring him here and now to be a rogue ninja of the Hidden Leaf. Our duty in the light of this new information is either to destroy his eyes, keeping them out of enemy hands, or to secure the return of his coveted Byakugan to the Hyuga Clan of the Hidden Leaf Village."

Silence once again fell upon the room; Akemi and Kaine stared at one another without expression for a lingering few moments. A cold wind wailed mournfully along the outskirts of the sleeping village.

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**As always, thank you very much for reading, and please look forward to the next update. It's coming very soon!**


	21. Bloodline Limits

**Enjoy!**

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Akemi and Kaine were processing the news when Makoto proved to be the first to speak up. "Who's Minoru?" she asked innocently, as if she had been ignoring the entire silent exchange between the shocked pair. She heard the name a few times during the preceding argument, but she didn't quite register exactly what the person was to them. Kaine looked to her like he wanted to answer, but when he tried to explain, he realized that he no longer had any idea who or what Minoru had actually been. The idealistic respect he once held for the leader was scattered like the fallen leaves.

Kakashi answered, doing what he could to keep the silence from becoming too oppressive. "He's the leader of the Truth Village; he is—or he _was_—Kaine and Akemi's master. He preaches a lot about 'personal truth,' and it turns out that his goal has always been to lie his way into exacting vengeance upon me and my people."

Akemi looked to the floor, her arms crossing and her half-gloved hands clamping on her elbows, as if to cradle herself from the revelation. She muttered through her sagging mouth, her lips feeling heavy with reluctant understanding. "Not blind...?" she mused, huffing out a hopeless breath. "Of course he's not blind..." she continued, and all eyes went to her. Kaine had already been suspicious, but his partner had been clinging to her notions of loyalty, despite having essentially defected by leaving without permission. She looked to Kaine, her eyes glistening with naked despair. "How could a blind man read the words from a plain piece of paper?"

Kaine was silent, but he met her dour expression with a flat one of his own. He wanted to console her, but he knew that there was nothing to be done. She was still in denial about the truth, and Kaine could see it on her face, but she was coming to her own realizations within the new context. Akemi continued speaking, standing up from her lean on the wall and pacing back and forth within the generously sized room. "Seeing the truth in all things...how convenient for him," she mumbled quietly, only for her own sake. "As if paper and ink have souls of their own," she laughed at her own gullibility. Though she didn't want to believe Kakashi's words, she was beginning to realize that she had always been harboring some doubt about the nature of her master's gift. "You must be _so _happy to hear this, Hamasaki," she said with scathing clarity. "You were right, after all—he's not the man I thought he was. He's a liar and a fraud, right? I've blindly pledged my life and loyalty to a con artist who never even thought to tell me his real name..."

Kaine started to open his mouth, but he didn't know what to say. The silence was painful to him, but he was wrestling with his own disbelief. He had expected Minoru to be responsible for some form of foul play, of sneaky manipulation at best, but nothing so grandiose and blatantly untrue. Kaine had heard of the Byakugan before, of course—it was as famous as the Sharingan, but even more plentiful in number, and arguably much more useful for strategic warfare. The Hyuga name was one of the assets that struck such fear into the hearts of the enemies of the Hidden Leaf. Kaine shut his mouth in defeat, looking back toward Kakashi and scanning him for signs of dishonesty—the mask made it difficult to read him, but the Jonin's single exposed eye told no lies.

Kakashi was willing to open up, willing to squash the silence—he was offering a few soothing reassurances from behind his dark mask, maintaining a calm voice. "I know this must be difficult for both of you to hear. If it's any comfort to you at all, he referred to Susumu separately, and in the past tense, claiming to have become an avatar of justice instead. You weren't wrong to believe him, Miss Yamaguchi—In fact, I think that he has even convinced _himself_ that his identity has changed into something different."

Akemi shivered, her eyes covered by the hanging locks of her hair as her head stayed forward. "He always felt so strong to me, so_ true_...but I maybe it's because I met him at a bad time in life. For me, everything was falling apart, and everything I thought I had was suddenly gone like a sunset. Back then, I was just a kid, but I knew what doom tasted like; I learned about it every time I drank ruined water and got sick, or took a breath of burning air to cough it back up." She tilted her head up, tears falling in pearlescent beads that gave her smooth skin a trail of glistening melancholy. "He found me in a ditch, clutching my stupid teddy bear and crying myself to sleep...he called out to me; he offered a hand, and I took it. We were both so young then, but to me...? Minoru was as big and strong as my dad always seemed to be, in all the dreams I've had about him."

She reached her hand out, grasping at empty air with a slow closing of slender digits. "Even at a time like this, I can remember how warm it felt when his fingers covered mine." She smiled falsely, her thin, pinkish lips puckered together. "When we were holding hands, it felt like we were each the only people in the world who mattered to one another, and he made me feel even better when he told me something sappy as he helped me stand—he said that he could see strength hiding behind the green of my eyes. So, just like that, I finally felt like I was safe; like the worst days in the world were forever behind me." She shook her head, closing her lids over the vibrant color of her gaze, as if to hide the shame of her confession. "Even on that night, he was calling himself Minoru. He had his eyes covered, so of course I asked, and he explained to me that he had been blind for his entire life. I believed him, probably because he was so kind...and for a long time, I honestly thought I was falling in love with him...but _always_..." She drifted off, clutching herself tightly along the elbows. "_**Always**_, I wondered to myself how he could have _possibly_ known the exact color of my eyes."

"Akemi," Kaine whispered, but then he fell away. He was taking the news poorly as well, but he knew that Akemi had been especially hopeful about the truth. She had expected Minoru to be cleared of Kaine's suspicions; she came because she was humoring her bratty little brother, and nothing more. In her ideal world, everybody in that inn—including Kakashi and Tenzo—would have been journeying soon back to the Truth Village with new found enlightenment, and the resolve to devotedly serve the world's one true savior. With regretful admission, it seemed obvious to Kaine that Kakashi was being almost _mechanically_ truthful. There wasn't a dishonest or deceptive inflection to be found as he rattled off his findings. He lacked the smooth-talking, sugar-coated coercion of Minoru's semi-natural tone.

Akemi wanted it all to be a lie; she wanted within every stray fiber of her soul to feel justified in her resentment of the Leaf, and yet deep inside the part of her mind that she had long since written off as childish, she had always known that Minoru was too good to be true. She reached up to the back of her head, finding the ties that held her headband to her skin. She unraveled them, peeling the thick weight off of her forehead and letting her silky hair flow around it as she removed it. "Personal truth," she murmured, running her finger along the outline of a crude flower. She could feel the attention of the whole room upon her, and for a moment she had wanted to drop a smoke pellet and run away from their pompous self-satisfaction. The sadness was turning into anger again. She looked with a harsh scowl toward Kakashi, the edge of her upper lip curled into a wolfish snarl. "If he's been lying all along, then why should I believe _you, _instead...?"

"There's nothing I can say that will prove it to you," Kakashi admitted, at ease with himself. He could clearly see the conflict in the woman's thoughts as she wore it on her expression. "All I'm offering up is the truth as I see it, and as Tenzo saw it. I could show you everything I heard and saw by using my Sharingan to place you under a genjutsu, but such a method could easily be a fabrication. I don't think a person like you would be sated by such an illusion." Kakashi shrugged, closing his eye and leaning his lower back against the table that was propped below the thick window sill that facilitated his entry to the room. "I'll tell you roughly the same thing I told Kaine when I allowed him to go back to your village—If you doubt your leader's intentions, then stay here with Tenzo and me. War between the Truth and the Leaf is inevitable, now. Susumu Hyuga's kind heart has been replaced by romantic notions of justified revenge; of righting wrongs. The question to ask yourself now, Akemi Yamaguchi, is whether you want to be here to _defend _Monolith Point, or if you want to be one of its attackers."

Akemi seemed confused by the ultimatum. "Even if war is coming, like you say, why would anybody take an interest in a humdrum little plot of land like this—why would a war come to Monolith Point?" She looked out the window over Kakashi's shoulder, eyeing the hefty boulder that served as the settlement's centerpiece. It was attractive as a decorative fixture, she thought, but not particularly useful to an invading force.

"You may not have noticed, since the sky is dark, but Monolith Point is the perfect hub for a growing army," Kakashi said, looking out the window as well. "I didn't know much about this place before I arrived, and even its residents seem pretty vague about the details," he continued, cutting a brief glance toward an obliviously silent Makoto. "But I did some research...this is a craftsman's terrace, plain and simple. All manner of weapons, medical supplies, and rations can be furnished by this convenient circle. It's small, out of the way—a perfect base of operations, complete with plenty of tools and experienced workers to exploit."

"Maybe, but the Truth Village already has its own craftsmen and medics; why would they need to come here?" Kaine spoke up, while Akemi pondered the idea.

She was the one who answered. "They're going to expand. Master Minoru's not stupid; he knows that a village of our size can't take on a massive force like the Leaf without more territory and soldiers. He was talking about making us into an army from the very beginning. He justified it by telling us that the Leaf was failing the Land of Fire; that we would serve its less fortunate masses. He sent us out to gather the lonely and rejected outcasts from any village we could reach." She looked to Kakashi, suddenly feeling the need to justify her own actions. "I always saw it as a kind of rescue mission, you know? We were _saving_ desperate people, like Minoru once saved me...and like how we both saved Hamasaki," she added, looking to the blushing Kaine.

He seemed to resent the notion. "I was fine on my own," he muttered while avoiding eye contact, but he knew he didn't sound convincing.

"Fine and skeletal," Akemi quipped, grasping at herself through the somber air. "A dab of Astor's bird crap could've knocked you over when we found you." She wanted to feel normal, and Kaine was the only link she had anymore to the life that she had always thought she had been living. At least _he_ hadn't changed too terribly much—still spoiled, defensive, and arrogant. She selfishly hoped that he would always be that way, because too many things had already become different. "Speaking of which, what happened to Astor? I haven't seen him since yesterday."

Kaine shrugged. "He's nearby; I sent him on ahead, told him to keep his eyes open. He can stay high above the reach of our enemies, and I think he wants to find Mamban himself, so he might be our best chance of flushing the bastard out."

"Hmm. For such an annoying blob of feathers, he sure seems...I dunno, useful?" Akemi said, raising a hand in a so-so kind of motion. "How do you even know that's what he wants? He's not the kind of animal that can talk, right?"

Kaine smirked. "Maybe not in a way that you'd understand, but I hear him clearly."

Akemi rolled her eyes, momentarily forgetting all of her troubles and feeling soothed by the familiar discussion. "You and your birds," she said, echoing a sentiment she had held onto for years. "I'll never get it."

"You don't have to get it, you just have to trust that I know what he's saying. He's never let me down before," Kaine said, nodding with confidence. Makoto was at his side, her back pressed onto her chair; she was twiddling her thumbs as if she felt incredibly awkward, seemingly having nothing to contribute to the talk.

Kakashi allowed them to banter back and forth, paying close attention to both of them. For all he really knew, the seemingly innocuous conversation about a bird could have been code speak. His active mind was always at work, constantly trying to figure out the means and motive of his potential adversaries. A year or two ago, he would have taken the pair at simple, face value—some of Naruto's idealism had rubbed off on him. With some time to himself and the reveal of Susumu Hyuga's treachery, things were different. Everybody in that town, with the exception of Tenzo, had the potential to be the next enemy he faced. Even Makoto had a deceptive intelligence about her; he recalled her keen observations on the inn roof. She had known exactly who he was, and she had essentially guessed his mission without much difficulty. Granted, he made it easy for her, but it was still unexpected when coming from such a bubbly personality.

Tenzo spoke up at last, having finished his requested task with the utmost certainty. "It's poison, alright," he confirmed, holding the small fragment of nut shell between his thumb and forefinger. "Very faint, but very potent—it reminds me of Orochimaru's work. I guess that makes sense, if Susumu was one of his projects."

"Projects?" Kaine asked. Upon learning Minoru's true name, he had entirely forgotten about the poison—it hardly seemed significant when a much bigger deception was on the table. "What kind of a project?"

"A project that's a lot like me," Tenzo answered, setting the shell back down and standing up from his chair to stretch out. "Orochimaru is the one responsible for giving me my wood style," he said, setting his hands on his hips. "It's an unpleasant piece of business, but it makes sense that he wouldn't stop trying to make progress in that area. In a way, I was a real success story for him—if he could reproduce Hashirama Senju's signature technique, then he could do the same with any other kekkei genkai that struck his fancy. That's probably how Susumu wound up with a curse seal and magnet style."

"A what?" Kaine replied. "A curse seal—what's that?"

"It's a special kind of tattoo; it's embedded with the chakra of the one who places it. Orochimaru's especially fond of branding his subjects with them, and he's probably the man with the most powerful curse marks in the known world. The survival rate of his marking method tends to hover around ten percent, but when the victims survive, they become exponentially more powerful. Minoru is going to be a very dangerous opponent if we can't talk him out of his petty crusade."

"I wouldn't call it petty, per se," Kakashi said, looking toward his partner. "He has a good reason to be angry, but he's certainly taking it too far, too fast. This scheme of his has been years in the making, but he's gotten too confident in its adolescence. He knowingly allowed me to discover it all; I think he honestly believed that he could win me over with a sob story and a maniacal rant. As tragic as his tale was—and it absolutely _was_ a tragedy of war—what's worse is that he's using the deaths of those unfortunate children as an excuse to expand his empire. He has no intention of cleansing the world of lies and hardship—he merely intends to replace the world's existing troubles with his own breed. Even with his Byakugan, he seems blind to his own evils."

Akemi put her hand on her stomach, rubbing herself warily as she let it all sink in. "So...this poison, Tenzo—what does it do to a person?" She looked up from her torso to regard the brown-haired male from across the room. "Are we in danger right now?"

Tenzo shook his head. "No, it doesn't seem like it's meant to be lethal. It's a very mild kind of neurotoxin, and it's laced with chakra—probably Minoru's. My guess is that it's designed as a long term, slow-release genjutsu that's meant to be absorbed through the stomach. It would be virtually untraceable once it's been eaten, and based on the components, it looks like it's capable of circulating through the system for five or more days at a time."

"Yeah," Akemi said, nodding. "That makes sense..." she trailed off. "It's been longer than that since the last time I ate. No wonder I feel so disoriented." She tried to shake her head and clear her doubts, but the night had been heavy and it was no use. "I think I want to go sleep on all this, you know? My whole brain is a mess right now," she said, vacantly turning toward the door beside her and opening it up.

"Don't do anything reckless, Akemi," Kaine cautioned. He knew her well; when she was in a bad mood, she had a habit of starting trouble.

"No worries, I'm not in the mood for reckless, Hamasaki," Akemi replied weakly. She seemed positively drained.

"Uhm, you know..." Makoto rang, offering a sort of olive branch toward Akemi. "If it's been so long since you ate, I could make you some stew before you sleep—as a favor, I mean." The only non-ninja in the room was trying to make herself useful.

Akemi smiled, her head turned away from the younger girl. "Not right now," she said, clutching her removed headband in her right hand. "After all this, the only thing I want to do is dream."

"Oh...okay," Makoto answered, defeated, with her lips sucked into a tight circle. She had never met a person who had gone more than five days without eating—not one who could turn down a free meal, that is. "I'll have some ready for you when you wake up, then. Goodnight, Miss Akemi," Makoto waved, trying to make peace with the older woman who probably didn't even notice the gesture.

"Call me Aki," she said back, stepping out and closing the door without waiting for a reply. Seconds later, the neighboring door could be heard as it was unlocked, opened, and then closed and relocked.

"Is she going to be okay?" Tenzo asked, turning to Kaine.

"I think so," Kaine said back, breathing a sigh that seemed to release a lot of tension. "She's always been fanatically loyal to him—to Susumu Hyuga, I suppose I should say. Tonight must have come as a stiff blow. I'm pretty surprised that she didn't fight it a lot harder than she did."

"She's intelligent, Kaine," Kakashi said. "She must have known better, all along...but survival instincts can trick us into situations that we can't escape. Even the best of us can be backed into a corner and made to believe _anything_ for the sake of living another day. Try not to forget how devoted _you_ were when I first found you."

"Yeah, and it makes me sick to my stomach when I think about it," Kaine said, putting a hand on his torso like Akemi had done. "I didn't eat a single thing when I returned there; the last thing I remember being hungry for was some of Makoto's stew," he recalled, looking to the girl beside him. She was beaming with pride as she heard what he said. "Best thing I've ever tasted," he added, reaching his hand over to pat her on the shoulder. "I think Akemi's going to love it, don't you?"

Makoto nodded, bringing her hand up to cover Kaine's upon her shoulder and keep it there greedily. "Yeah, everybody does. It's a secret family recipe—the trick is in the stirring," she says, pantomiming the act of mixing up a pot of the sloshing components with her free hand. "Rika knows how to make it, too—she's better at it than I am, in fact."

"I doubt that," Kaine said, flattering her. "I've never even _imagined_ anything better than what I tasted." Makoto blushed, and he grinned broadly at the sight. She was a constant reminder of the things he had always been without. He loved Akemi, but they were more like partners in misery—a brother and sister who looked out for one another. Makoto was something else entirely.

Kakashi hummed again. "You seem to be in good spirits, despite all of this, Kaine. What happened in the village to make you so willing to leave it behind?"

"I was willing to give it a shot again, honestly—but that was before I tried to teach a student of mine how to find his own chakra. A guy like you probably knows about the method—if they can't feel it, you have to give it a push and make it move inside of them. They need something to grab onto. I sent a disruption into him, and he started acting delirious for a moment. I realized that he had been under a genjutsu of some kind." Kaine turned his hand off of Makoto's shoulder, clasping her fingers between his own, idly bringing both of their arms down to sag together in the empty space between them. "He started questioning something that I had never really questioned for myself, before I managed to stay away for a while. He almost immediately went back to perfect loyalty—even if this hypnotism's effect is dispelled, it reasserts itself immediately through the blood. I figured that it _had _to be something in the food. As for what I questioned? Minoru orchestrates a sort of testing environment, not too unlike the Chunin exams, see? He pits us against one another to gauge our progress, and very often somebody ends up dead."

Kakashi nodded. "I see; you have a problem with that, don't you?"

Kaine scoffed. "I don't have an issue with killing people, if that's what you mean—but I do have an issue with killing _my own_ people. I didn't realize it until I returned and really thought about it, though. This poisonous genjutsu...it must be _damned_ subtle. Even when I try to think about it, I can't remember feeling myself suppressed. The only change is that I'm finally regretting the things I did to our people." Kaine looked to Makoto, squeezing her tender little hand. "Rika's a strong woman; you should know that about her. She's the best and brightest of all the students the Truth had when we left—Minoru would have inevitably tested her against a master. She might not have survived the ordeal, if that opponent wasn't me or Akemi...so we both realized at the same time that we had to get her out of there."

Makoto nodded, turning more pale than usual as she thought about that kind of a world. She was accustomed to a town that smelled like fresh roses and ramen, where children scurried around to play tag and kick tumbleweeds to and fro. The thought of being forced to fight one of her village mates—especially her own sister—was one that she had never even considered before. She couldn't believe it existed. "Thank you, Kaine...thanks for saving her from that place...is that what happened to Mako, and to Fiona? Is Mamban one of Minoru's 'masters'?"

Kaine shook his head. "No, Mamban's another case altogether, but Minoru is the one who gave the order that got the two of them killed. He sent Akemi, Rika, Mako, and Fiona to get food for the village—they're starving, right now, I should mention—and they found Mamban's puppet soldiers waiting for them. Akemi managed to keep the the other three safe, up until the ring leader showed up. Based on what she says, he wields a strange jutsu that melts clothes, dirt, and flesh alike in the form of rain. She couldn't defend against it, so she...she grabbed Rika, and she escaped through the earth."

Kakashi looked over to Tenzo, who looked back at him, and they both nodded. Tenzo opened up. "Minoru called Mamban an old friend; supposedly, they were both taken into Orochimaru's fold and experimented on at the same time. I'd guess that this strange ability could be the result of all that meddling. To me, it sounds like a form of boil release; it has the properties of acid."

"Sounds like what she told me, yeah. Is there a way to counter it?" Kaine asked.

"A few. Water can dilute it, and fire can force it back until it dries up. Even so, if a single drop lands on you, it's not going to end well. It may not be immediately fatal, but you should do what you can to cut your losses, if you understand my meaning." Tenzo looked down to his hand, flexing it into a fist and then making a chopping motion across his wrist with the other hand.

Kaine nodded, recalling the story he had been told. "Yeah, Akemi was quick enough to save her arm, she told me. Lost a chunk of skin, but it could have been worse. You're right about her, Kakashi; she's very intelligent. I'm glad she's here, and not there—if we do end up facing a war, it would be really bad to see her on Minoru's side of it."

"We can't be sure that she's going to fight with us, even if she doesn't want to fight with _him_ anymore. To her, we're just another group of liars; she's more likely to run off on her own." Kakashi looked to Kaine. "Don't you think?"

He shrugged. "I'm not so sure; I would have thought the same about myself, but I think there's something that keeps her tethered to us."

"Oh?" Kakashi was intrigued, tilting his head.

"She's grown rather fond of Rika." Kaine answered, and Makoto smiled softly.

"Rika seems to like her, too, you know?" the woman's sister admitted. "She was asleep, so I didn't get to really ask her, but...she looked really peaceful while she was being carried, don't you think? I haven't seen her look like that since she was twelve."

Kakashi reached into a pouch, producing a book that he had already read, though he didn't seem opposed to going through it a second time. As he searched for his most recent page, he spoke thoughtfully: "Old habits are hard to break; if she ends up confronting Minoru for some reason or another, we might lose her to his wiles. Keep an eye on her, won't you, Kaine?"

"I'll see what I can do, but I have to admit that she's a better fighter than I am. The last test I took was against her, and I won't say that she _completely_ outclassed me, but she's a lot craftier than I am. It won't be easy to hold her in one spot if she wants to be alone for a while; honestly, I wouldn't want to stop her from clearing her head, either." Kaine rubbed along his stomach through his vest. He could feel the slightest twitch of pain beneath his scar, agitating the last bit of tissue that hadn't been fully healed yet. It only bothered him when he pressed hard against it, but he sometimes did so as a reminder of how it felt to have a knife jammed fatally into his torso. A knife that he, himself, had made. He wondered if he might be the same knife to Minoru's gut—the weapon that had been crafted by skilled hands, only to be further refined and then turned against its creator.

Tenzo had a thought. "Either way, we need to be prepared. Tomorrow, Kaine, we're going to have to talk about something in detail." Tenzo looked to the dazed young man, ripping him out of his musings as he looked to be confused by the statement. Tenzo clarified. "I noticed something before I rescued you—you can create water with one hand, and lightning with your other at the same time, right?"

Kaine nodded. "Yeah...isn't that pretty normal? I've always wondered why more people didn't combine their powers like that."

Tenzo shook his head. "No, that's actually a rare gift—a typical shinobi can only produce and manipulate one form of chakra at a time throughout their body. The ability to use two separate elements at a time is the first step to unlocking a unique kekkei genkai. I suppose that Minoru never noticed it in you, or maybe he just didn't want to teach you more about it as a way of keeping you in line." Tenzo clapped his hands together with his fingers interlaced, pulling them apart and in turn producing a wooden rod about as long as a pencil, which he broke off from his own palm and twirled aimlessly around between his fingers. "If we break it down simply, my wood style is just a combination of earth and water—it's the specific method of combination that turns it into what it is, and it's impossible to learn the technique without first inheriting it."

Kaine looked at his own hand as it held onto Makoto's. The girl was doing the same thing, looking curiously at her friend; a lot of what they were talking about had flown right over her head, but she recognized it when Tenzo told Kaine that he had something special about him. "So you can do something that others can't, Kaine?" she asked, leaning her head over and pointing her side-slanted brown eyes up toward the confounded blue of her guest.

Kaine looked flustered, suddenly feeling like he was the center of attention. He longed for Akemi to storm back in and make a distracting spectacle of herself, but he was on his own. He tried to sound cool—"I can do a lot of things that others can't," he said, dusting off his shoulder. "It's no big deal."

Tenzo rolled his eyes, and Kakashi was engrossed in his book. The wood user set his demonstration rod down onto his desk and folded his arms over one another at his waist. "I'd like to train you; to see if we can unlock the final form of your elements. Typically, water and lightning combine into something called Gale Style; Storm Style if you prefer. It takes several forms, depending on the wielder, so I'm excited to see what turns up."

Kaine went silent, looking to his hand as a single spark of blue electricity arced up between his thumb and forefinger. He had never really thought of it that way. He knew the basic concept of a kekkei genkai—a bloodline limit. A person had to be 'born' with it, even if they never knew they had it. Had he been capable of something so useful without ever noticing it on his own? "Alright, Tenzo—you've got my attention. If what you guys are saying about Minoru is true, then we're going to need all the weapons we can get."

Tenzo nodded. "Great. Meet me in the woods after breakfast tomorrow, and I'll see what I can do to help. Are you going to be there, too, Kakashi?"

Kakashi nodded, keeping his book open and his eyes slowly scanning it. "Sure. It ought to be fun," he said dryly. "With that in mind, let's get some rest. We've now got two enemies to worry about—Minoru is out in the open, but Mamban has yet to show his true face to us. Let's not allow ourselves to be caught off guard."

"Yeah," Kaine said, giving Makoto one more glance and a squeeze of her hand. He had hardly noticed that he was holding onto her so tightly, yet she didn't complain. She looked momentarily scared by the talk of enemies and weapons, but she hummed, then slipped herself away from Kaine somewhat abruptly to put on the face of a hotel hostess, a practiced look that allowed her to mask what she was thinking.

"I'll leave you all to a pleasant night, then; will you be needing a wake-up call?" Makoto asked, clasping her hands together and smiling with a half-bow.

"No, that won't be necessary," Kakashi answered, giving her a halfhearted wave of farewell. "We'll see to ourselves. Thank you."

Makoto nodded, stepping out of the room and shutting the door.

Kaine idly thought that it was careless of them to allow him into the room at such a vulnerable time, especially after his previous actions and loytalties, but he realized that there was nothing he could do to them, even so. Kakashi had thoroughly demoralized him in the forest; Kaine doubted that he could even scratch Kakashi, even if he did attack the man in his deepest sleep.

"I'm going to get some sleep," Tenzo announced with a yawn.

"Yeah," Kaine added, belatedly. "Me too."

There were four beds in the room, organized against the back wall while the window was situated on the left. All things considered, the single room was massive—it must have cost a fortune to rent it, normally. Kaine yanked his vest off and discarded his empty sword sheathe, leaving his other clothes on, and then he slumped down against the closest bed. He bounced once against the fluffy material, and then he melted into it. He groaned, unable to fathom how good it felt to relax like that, and before he knew it there was nothing in his mind but dreams—the same terrible dreams that he had been having for most of his life.

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**Next update coming soon. Thanks for reading!**


	22. Complacency

**Enjoy!**

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In the night, Mamban felt comfortably invisible. He and his team had traversed the forest in search of new blood for years, roaming carefully beneath their superior's view. Lord Danzo Shimura was a man with a temper; a man who should _never_ be crossed—not openly. The key to survival beneath his jurisdiction was to be _invisible_ while plotting against his wishes. Mamban taught the same principle to every one of his thinking, breathing companions, and the result was a middling chance of retention. Danzo was keen; as a man with a wide array of stolen Sharingan eyes, the elder was difficult to deceive. Despite Mamban's comfort, he could never forget the risks as he occasionally lost valuable pieces to his erstwhile master's discoveries.

And so he decided that the the proper time for his clandestine meeting with Susumu Hyuga, the man who now comically referred to himself as Minoru, was beneath the moon. Under cover of darkness there was a smaller chance of being spotted by those still faithful to Root. For all intents and purposes, Mamban was still their commanding officer on location, and yet he had shed his loyalty to Danzo long before he had ever even proclaimed it. There was mild danger of being ousted, but few who would dare oppose him, lest they become another one of his cursed trinkets. Mamban was a man with his own agenda, much like his warm, blue counterpart Minoru. They complemented one another quite nicely, whether his old friend wanted to admit to that truth or not. It hardly mattered to Mamban, one way or another—_he_ had the upper hand in their relationship, and he enjoyed that position utterly.

The clone standing before Mamban had carved its way through a few dozen of the expendable puppet soldiers, and their husks were all lying in the leafy dirt, twitching and groaning—injured to the point of uselessness, but still alive. Always alive. "You're still too soft," came the sleek voice of the man in the red cobra mask. His gloved hands were swaying with the wind, feeling himself as nothingness. "They cannot feel the pain you inflict," he continued, looking confidently at Minoru's hidden face. "End their misery; finish their servitude and grant them the freedom they deserve from their deaths."

Minoru's clone was stern and serious, refusing to play the psychotic games of his besieger. "Why have you come here at all? Why do you insist on forcing my people unnecessarily into starvation and subjugation?" Despite his justified anger, Minoru still came off as a slick, fluid speaker. The guile had earned him a great number of followers, even before his poison had cemented their long-term loyalty—yet his adversary did not seem to care for the easiness of his words.

"Orders, but of course," Mamban replied, his twirling self stopping on his heel to point his oversized mask toward Minoru. "Lord Danzo Shimura of the Hidden Leaf has ordered the return of the rogue ninja, Susumu Hyuga, as a mission with top-level secrecy."

"If you want to turn me in, then why propose the alliance? What do you gain from luring a clone of mine into the forest to hear your terms?" Minoru was skeptical, as he should have been. His partner was known for his wily antics and distinct lack of mercy. He was unpredictable and dangerous, and he certainly wasn't stupid enough to admit his intentions before springing the trap. There must have been some honesty in the talk of an alliance, but there were numerous layers of coyness to sift through on the way to finding the gem of truth at the center.

"What do I gain? That is an easy question—I gain the satisfaction of witnessing your helplessness. I get to see your people suffer and die in the dark, just as I and mine once did when you abandoned us. I get to hear you beg for forgiveness; to claim that you care more about your pawns than about your own life." Mamban pointed his black hand at Minoru, who didn't budge yet.

Minoru hummed. "You still hold a strong grudge, then. I pity your narrow-mindedness."

Mamban laughed openly, the sound like a hissing snake as he shook his flamboyant headpiece left and right. "Pity is a word you rely upon too often. Was it not pity that invented your naïve mercy; pity _for yourself_ that fueled your lust for escape, at all costs? Poor, poor Susumu—tortured and played with. Clearly, he was given a justification for his cowardice...but have you forgotten that you were not the only one to be wronged? Why do you suppose that _your_ path to justice is the only correct one?"

Minoru scoffed, turning his head away and growling. "Because _your_ mind was lost so very long ago. To trust you with the future of my village—with the future of the entire Land of Fire—would be a grave mistake. We need a stable leader—one who recognizes the subtle difference between right and wrong."

"A leader like you?" Mamban said through a whistle of air. "How _fun_ it is to hear your self-assurances out in the open. Do you honestly think you're stable, Susumu? Do you think you have the right to lead a flock of lambs into their inevitable slaughter by the hands of the Leaf?"

"We are growing stronger," Minoru returned with a quick bluff, snapping his blindfolded gaze back onto his opposing leader. They were alone in those woods, aside from the groaning fodder that dotted the landscape in the wake of Minoru's angry approach. "My disciples have each become powerful. Your toys and clones will not stand a chance against us, should we decide to shatter your pitiful siege."

"Then why is it not done? How entertaining; you claim increasing strength, so why have three of your 'flock' decided to join, instead, with the heir of Hashirama Senju's power?" One of Mamban's eyes could be seen through a slit in the front of his mask, one of the dotted nose-holes of the oversized snake. His gaze had a deep redness to it; the color of blood. His body had been exceptionally altered and mangled by his time under Orochimaru's care. "Kaine Hamasaki was with him; and the girls who escaped from me were there, as well. I should very much like to have all of them to myself," he said derisively.

Minoru felt confidence resurging within him as news of the trio's escape reached his ears. He had assumed their deaths, or at least their capture—although it was bad news to hear that they had fallen into the hands of another enemy, any fate was preferable to having his cherished students paraded before him as thoughtless puppets, robbed of their strong wills. "They have embraced their rightful freedom, Mamban. I have always cherished free will; free thought. My students are not my slaves, and although Kaine, Akemi, and Rika have made the wrong choice, I cannot fault them for following their hearts."

Mamban laughed again, reaching a hand up to the eye of his mask to mime the act of wiping away a forming tear. The red dome was a dense ceramic carving that was certainly not his true eye, but he seemed to enjoy himself in acting it out. "That is quite rich, Susumu; quite rich, indeed. You may not realize it, but I have taken possession of some of your lambs in the past..." Mamban flexed his arms, then his fingers, wriggling them as a substitute for wildly dancing about. He could not suffer stillness. "I have sampled the formulas of their entrails; the poisonous taint that filled their stomachs. It was one of Orochimaru's recipes, was it not?"

Minoru smirked, his clone's hand reaching up to peel away his mask and show the copies of his clear Byakugan eyes. "I suppose there really is no sense in lying to you, is there, old friend?" He took a step closer, leaves crunching idly beneath his sandaled feet. "As such, I can be frank—my people are starving. If help does not arrive soon, then they are, each of them, doomed to die in a slow, agonizing way. We have plenty of water, but no fish in the streams—plenty of fresh air, but not even crickets or worms to savor from the earth."

"You've chosen your location, and your defenses, poorly; your barrier restricts the flow of good, living game, doesn't it?" Mamban quipped, tilting his head.

"And the bad 'game', as well," the other man replied swiftly. "Your soldiers would be crawling through the mud if not for its complete coverage."

"How does your barrier stand, I wonder? Even _you_ do not have limitless chakra, and yet the camouflage has never faded, its stinging border never weakening." Mamban couldn't help but twirl on the tip of his boot, his robe lifting slightly in a pirouette to show the blackness of his underlying pants. "How many of your people have you commandeered as the source for such an unflinching power?"

"Several," the answer came. Minoru knew better than to try to lie anymore. Mamban knew him better than anybody, although it was disgusting to admit it. "They gave of themselves to perform a task that few would understand."

"You make them sound like noble sacrifices," Mamban teased, taking a step closer. Minoru's open Byakugan could tell that the man he saw was the true man—there was no clone, no misdirection.

"Not unlike your countless, 'loyal' servants?" Minoru replied, trying to keep his dignity. He was still uncomfortable with the truth; the _real _truth. As he dug into his own subconscious, he found a great many things in common with the twisted methods of Mamban's men. "Kaine Hamasaki returned to me from the Leaf a few months ago, branded with a controlling genjutsu—did you have any part in that?"

Mamban's head shook. "It was not my choice, no. Lord Danzo must have had use for him. Your star pupil is a lousy spy, you see...I knew of his presence then, and numerous times before, as well. Danzo used your man's complacency to learn a great deal about your village. Imagine that old, wrinkled face's pure embarrassment when he realized who was likely behind it all—and that the skittish, cowardly Susumu Hyuga had been building an empire just off the Land of Fire's doorstep."

"So, he knew of my past identity from the very beginning?" Minoru asked, his brows furrowing with disbelief. His lengthy tail of hair flowed lazily in the night's breeze, a few strands draping across his forehead and cheeks, a sensation that he rarely got to enjoy anymore. There was always a mask to block his skin, and always a reason to hide behind it. In an unsettling, nostalgic kind of way, talking to Mamban had given him some peace; some sense of normalcy.

"No, he never _knew_," Mamban replied. "Yet, of course he suspected. Although your escape was from Orochimaru's care, Lord Danzo certainly heard about it. When Orochimaru defected entirely from the Leaf, he also abandoned most of his known hideouts...luckily for us, hmm?"

"Luck is a word I've lost faith in," Minoru answered, stepping nearer to Mamban.

"Good philosophy," the answer came easily. "So, you've come here to negotiate the terms of an alliance. That's good—I have no intention of allowing the Leaf to have you. You will be a much more valuable asset to me and my cause than to theirs."

"Don't expect me to cooperate smoothly with your savagery, Mamban. Although I will come to terms tonight, know that I will always be looking to undermine you; to slaughter you from behind." Minoru squinted, and from the shadows came a second copy of his form, seeking to ambush Mamban from the rear of his sight, completely silent. It was a fluid ambush, but perhaps his flourish of the tongue had tipped the intended victim off to the assault, as Mamban twirled out of the way of the attack. The second clone had been trying to rush its target, and when he was dodged, he readjusted his attempts. Mamban caught the clone's striking fingertips with a tightly gloved hand, squeezing down on the digits until the sound of breaking bones snapped through the trees. As a clone, it did not react to the pain, and its second hand made another sweeping strike which was easily caught as well. Mamban turned his head toward the idle clone; the one orchestrating the meeting.

"You're a true fool, Susumu," Mamban said with a chuckling grunt. It wasn't exactly easy to hold back the strength of Minoru, even as a clone, but he didn't seem to be struggling too mightily. "You couldn't have truly expected to slay me like this, but even so...the attempt was paltry." From Mamban's hands, acid began to leak, seeping through his gloves and touching the skin of his cloned opponent. As flesh and bone began to melt away, the clone poofed into smoke before the encounter could become too unbearably gruesome.

"Just a reminder," Minoru's remaining copy said with a conceding nod. "Though I am here, I am _not_ pleased with the circumstance. You propose an alliance, but I suspect that you only want to abuse my people and add them to your army as silent pawns."

Mamban shook his head. "No, no, of course not—you and your people will retain their minds. They will remain as they are, as _your_ people. I merely want your reassurance that my plans will not be hindered by you and yours...and when the time comes, when the Leaf needs to be dissolved, I will be calling upon your help to make it happen."

Minoru sighed, expecting there to be something more lurking beneath the surface. "I know that it cannot be so simple, yet I cannot disagree with your terms as we stand. We will stay out of your way, provided that you allow us to retain our freedom and autonomy. Have some of your drones fetch some food for us, as well. I would like to see this grow into a mutually beneficial partnership—just like the good old days."

Mamban chuckled. "Choose your words more carefully, Susumu—in the good old days, you left us all to die."

"And yet you lived," Minoru said back, defiantly. "Some might argue that the adversity has made you each stronger..."

"Perhaps," Mamban replied. "Tell me, 'Minoru,' what do you think of Kakashi Hatake? He fought in the war, just like we did...he even emerged from the dust with a new power, like us. Is he as fearsome as they say?"

Minoru blanched, even as a clone—his plain white eyes spoke volumes of his encounter with the copy ninja. The mythical monster. "He's _far_ worse," the words came out, a bit dry. "I watched steel wink away into nothing...my barrier melted before a blink of his eye. As I dwell on the fear that he inspired within me, I can only see the abyss that nearly killed me. Kakashi Hatake is not a man, but a monster—a monster who is too dangerous to keep alive."

"Is that so?" Mamban marveled, tantalized by the idea. "Perhaps he will be our first conquest. A message that we can loudly send to the Leaf—say, how would having Kakashi's head mounted onto a pike serve your ambitions, old friend?" Mamban offered out a gloved hand, open-palmed with fingers extended for a handshake.

"A barbaric yet_ necessary_ outcome, I must admit..." Minoru's clone replied, reaching his bare hand out to touch Mamban's extended shake. "Bring food for my people, and I will lower the barrier as a sign of good faith. Faith that you will control the surrounding woods and allow us to move freely, without fear of Kakashi or his watchdog." Their hands clamped tightly together, and although Mamban's black glove had fully dissolved the last thing to touch it, there was no detriment to the pale flesh. The agreement was sparse and impossibly vague, but the two old partners seemed to have remembered how well they truly understood one another, despite the vast canyon of differences that tended to separate them.

"I have only one more condition to this partnership," Mamban added.

"I never would have guessed," Minoru said with a sarcastic smirk, keeping his hand in place.

"When Kakashi is finished, I will be the one to obtain his Sharingan. Those beautiful eyes are quite scarce to find in the wild, these days." Mamban pointed to his own eye, blood red but certainly not the Uchiha's legacy. "I cannot help but to inherit some of my old master's ambitions, you see."

Minoru scowled, not liking the idea of sharing his trophies...but he was already in possession of a superior pair of eyes, and saw no harm in the concession. "Very well. You can have it."

Nodding gladly, Mamban offered a pleased bow. "Wonderful! This has turned into the rekindling of a _beautiful_ friendship, wouldn't you say?" Mamban proclaimed into the air as Minoru's clone released the handshake and turned to leave.

"It is an ugly association, but in comparison to the Leaf's bedfellows, we are going to be seen as saviors." Minoru responded with his head turned away, his cloned mask being reapplied to his eyes as he made his way back to his people. They could never know the truth; Kakashi had to be dealt with in short order, lest Minoru's secret become common fact. It was probably spreading like wildfire around Kakashi, already. If the entirety of the Leaf, and especially the Hyuga Clan, learned of his survival and betrayal, there wouldn't be a thick enough barrier—or nearly enough soldiers—to protect him from their wrath...At least not yet. Soon, however, he _would_ be ready for them. Mamban's strangely straightforward partnership would make it that much easier to attain his ultimate victory.

Mamban watched his reformed ally make an exit, and he hummed to himself with approval. "Hatake will be dealt with...and even sooner than you might think..."

* * *

In the morning, Akemi woke up with a catlike stretch, reaching her arms out to either side and flexing her torso backward, turning herself into a perfect arch against the comfort of her mattress. "Nnngh, that felt so good," she mumbled, reaching her hand up to rub the sleep out of her puffy eyes. She shook her head twice, trying to clear her thoughts and remember exactly where she was. Had the news about Master Minoru simply been an exhausted nightmare? Her next thought was to look to her left, expecting to see Rika asleep in the bed beside her, but spotting nobody. "Guess she's already up..." she said groggily, climbing out of bed with great difficulty. She had never slept so peacefully in her entire life.

Downstairs, Rika and Makoto were having an awkward staring contest while their parents looked on in confusion through the round porthole built into the door to the kitchen. Akemi walked down the steps in just enough time to hear the start of an argument. "Why'd you go away?" Makoto asked, sounding pitiful. Akemi moved to turn around on the bottom stair, hoping to avoid the familial conflict after so recently having her own spat with Kaine, but Rika pointed up to her and called her out by name, freezing her in place and officially roping her into the discussion.

"Aki keeps asking me that, too; why do you people even want to know!?" Rika huffed, crossing her bare arms and staring hard at her sister.

"It's a fair question," Akemi said, admitting her role in the drama and moving toward a table, propping a chair up to sit herself in. "She's just worried about you, and it's easy to guess why."

Rika almost protested, but she thought of Mako and Fiona and decompressed, lowering her pointed finger. "Oh...so you told her?"

Makoto nodded, puffing out her cheeks like a blowfish. "She told me...and I heard that you could have died, too?" Despite her angry looking face, Makoto's voice was still timid and morose as she pleaded with her older sibling. She couldn't project her anger even if she tried, since she was so incredibly slight and non-threatening.

"I'm alive, though, and I'm getting _strong_." Rika looked down to her arm, noting the thick, unsightly scar that covered most of the distance between her wrist and her elbow. "Something like this just _won't_ happen again...not between us, anyway. Tell her, Aki; tell her how strong I've gotten!"

That was exactly what Akemi was afraid of: being the middleman between bratty sisters getting into an argument about nothing. She didn't much see the point, since they were both still alive and standing in their homes together—to the jaded Truth Village defector, it all seemed so ridiculously petty. They had family; a place to call home. They loved each other, even if it didn't seem like it on the outside. "Actually...I'm just going to sit here until one of you makes me some of that stew I was promised last night," Akemi decided to say, dancing away from the argument while also trying to distract them from making it worse.

It was very early in the morning; surprisingly so, in fact, for the whole family to have already been awake. Looking out through the window at the far end of the tavern's main sitting room, Akemi could barely see the earliest sunbeams cresting over the distant treeline. The sky was still dark but steadily shifting, the horizon colored thickly purple and orange as night and day fought their constant battle. The light and the dark were like siblings, too, she thought.

Rika and Makoto both stopped their squabbling, looking to Akemi's non-committal answer, and taking it as something of a challenge. "Fine, I'll make it for you," Makoto said, glaring at her sister.

"So go do it..." Rika said, raising her shoulders and slanting her head forward, trying to make herself look superior. To Akemi, they both looked awfully juvenile, but she had a habit of thinking that way about _most _people. Makoto huffed and wandered off into the kitchen, met by her happily married, middle-aged parents who began to needle her with questions about her sister's return as the door swung shut and drowned them out.

Rika sighed heavily, rubbing her hands down her face and moving instinctively to Akemi's table, saddling herself over a seat and looking to her sensei with a somewhat embarrassed blush over her pale cheeks. "You, uh...you're the one who carried me here, right, Aki?"

Akemi nodded, propping her elbows onto the table and splaying her hands out in either direction to rest her chin in both palms, cradling her cheeks. "Yep, I sure did," she said, smirking.

"Well, uh...was I heavy?" Rika asked, rubbing her hand over her exposed scar. She felt annoyingly aware of it in the wake of her burst of frustration. "I'll bet I was heavy."

"Nah," Akemi replied, winking a pleasant green eye. She was still wary of the too-comfortable setting, but at least Rika was alright and awake. "You snore, though," Akemi added with a whisper.

"I do _NOT _snore!" Rika whined, standing up from the chair she had just sat down in.

"How would you even know, aren't you asleep while you're doing it?" Akemi shot back, snidely waving her hand downward to coax Rika into settling back into place. "It's a cute kind of snore, though, if it makes you feel better."

"Cute...? You're just making fun of me now, aren't you, Aki?" Rika folded her arms together, still huffy, but at least she was smiling that time.

"Somebody's got to do it," Akemi whispered, looking toward the kitchen as Makoto returned to the door with a bowl of steaming stew. She had it supported in both hands, elbows out like she was some kind of hoity-toity special servant. She set the bowl down in front of Akemi, and the wooden table thunked beneath the weight of the ceramic vessel and its contents. Some of the broth splooshed up a little bit, getting small dots of brown color on Akemi's favorite shirt. "Erm...thanks," Akemi said, her lip turned into a snarl.

Makoto turned away without a word, stomping impotently back into the kitchen to stew in her own thoughts. Rika rolled her eyes. "I think she's jealous of you," the curly-headed sister said with a satisfied grin. "She's got the _biggest_ little crush on Kaine, and she sees you as stiff competition. I tried to tell her 'no, no, they're like brother and sister,' but she seems pretty determined to call me a liar."

Akemi snickered, covering her mouth with a slender hand. "S'that right? Well, she doesn't need to worry, but you don't have to _tell_ her that she doesn't need to worry. Let her have her fits." Akemi took the spoon from her bowl, the metallic handle warmed a bit by the radiating heat of the meal placed before her. Although she didn't have much of a stomach to be eating anything after the revelation of Minoru's poison, she couldn't deny herself the nourishment any longer—her stomach growled to emphasize just how needy she was. The first bite was slow and careful, rolled around in Akemi's mouth by a discerning tongue. Her face contorted into all kinds of judgemental expressions, eyes looking up and left, down and right, as if looking for the right word. When she swallowed, she shrugged. "Eh...it's alright."

Rika smirked. "You don't have to lie to me just because Makoto made that batch, Aki," she said, her smile full of pearly teeth. "I don't get jealous like she does."

"Oh, we all get jealous of something, sometimes," Akemi replied, taking another bite of her stew. "I'll admit that it's damn good, but Hamasaki might've given it too much credit." Another bite...then another. She was practically inhaling it without realizing her speed, and when she went for what felt like a sixth bite, the bowl was already empty. "Huh...how about that?" She said, clearing her throat and setting her spoon down.

"Want some more?" Rika offered, stretching her hand over the table to grab at the bowl.

Akemi caught her gently by the wrist, shaking her head. "No thanks, Rika. I don't intend to get comfortable here."

Rika nodded. "I understand; neither do I. I'm going to be leaving pretty soon."

Akemi narrowed her eyes, releasing Rika's tender arm and setting her hand flat on the table. "Why? Don't you want to stay a bit longer? This place seems like it's meant for you...I saw you sleeping, last night. You looked so happy in that bed. You don't really want to go back to the scratchy, half-torn sheets you stole, right?"

Rika sighed, taking her hand back from across the way. "No, it's not about the sheets...it was never about _that_—well, no, it kind of is, but it's not really what you think it is."

Akemi shrugged, the slope of her shoulders peaking before falling into a shape that was rounded like crescent moons. "I never really had a clue; if I had to take a guess about why you left, I'd say that you hated your family...but that doesn't seem to be the case. All I saw was a sibling fight."

Rika smiled at the notion. "You're right; I love my family, I just don't like what they _do_."

Akemi blinked. "You mean the inn?"

Rika hummed thoughtfully. "Not just the inn, though. This whole town is...well, forgive me for saying it, but the town's _boring._ I got _sick_ of boring, and when Kaine showed up with a juicy promise of adventure...of unlocking life's mysteries...I couldn't resist. I wanted Makoto to come, too, but she's too happy here..."

Akemi took a breath, trying to hold her reaction. She gracefully pushed her bowl away from her front, taking the necessary precautions to protect the inn's assets. Once the space was clear, she stood up, then formed two fists to slam them onto the wooden furniture directly in front of her, making a loud cracking sound, but not _quite_ breaking clear through the surface. The table was spared from complete destruction by its assailant's desperate effort to stay 'calm,' which basically translated into barely-superhuman levels of impact. Small craters were made in the crackled wood, but it held up. "You mean to tell me that you abandoned your friends, your family, and your home...you went to face almost _certain death..._because you got bored of having a peaceful life!?"

Rika leaned back, her chair creaking beneath her as she nearly toppled over from surprise. "Whoa, relax, Aki!" She pleaded, waving both hands out in front of her, fingers spread wide like her eyes were.

"You ungrateful little—" Akemi began, raising her hand as if she intended to slap her student clear across the face, but then she looked over toward the glass porthole—all three of Rika's family members were peering at them, now, and she felt rather conscious of her unruly appearance. After a long pause, Akemi sat back down, clearing her throat and closing her eyes. "You remind me of Hamasaki," was all she said, calmly crossing her hands into a little steeple in front of herself, nestled onto the damaged table.

Rika breathed a sigh of relief. She had been hit by Akemi before, but it was always for training's sake—she had never been struck in anger, but she feared for a moment that it was going to happen, and she feared even worse that she had totally deserved it. "I know, I know...it's pretty selfish of me, isn't it?"

"Pretty selfish doesn't even begin to touch it, but...I kind of get what you mean. There's that old saying, 'the grass is greener on the other side of the fence,' right? You have a peaceful, nurturing life, but you hear all about the romantic adventures of ninjas and explorers—you want something exciting, something to get your blood pumping." Akemi narrated the thought process she imagined, her eyes staying tightly closed to avoid looking into Rika's face. She was ashamed of the girl she had come to like as a friend and student, but she couldn't bear to look at her...because if she looked, she would have been forced to forgive her before it was time. She had tried to stay mad in the past, but the other woman was just too damned sweet. "I don't know, though...if you wanted something thrilling, couldn't you have just gone out and gotten a boyfriend?"

Rika blinked, then blushed, leaning her head back and looking to the ceiling. "Nah, that's uh...that's not really my _speed_." She then cleared her throat, smacking her cheeks a few times to wash the color away, then looked level to her sensei. "Anyway, I'm sorry if it's not the answer you were looking for...I was hoping you'd stop asking after a while, you know?"

"So you didn't tell me earlier because you wanted me to forget I ever wondered. Whatever, Rika; you're a real piece of work." Akemi sighed, opening her eyes and then realizing that she was right—she couldn't stay mad, even though she tried. "I guess you've held up your end of the bargain, now. Think you've gotten enough training?" Akemi winked, knowing what the other woman would say.

"Not even close," Rika answered, letting her smile creep back onto her face. "I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to deal with me anymore, though."

"I feel like I'm the only one who's going to put up with you, now," Akemi answered, reaching over the craters in the table to fetch the undamaged bowl and hold it forward. "Now that I've tried your sister's stew, how about _you_ make me some and I can tell you for sure which one of you is better at it?"

Rika giggled pleasantly, nodding as she took Akemi's bowl from her. "I don't want to give away the ending, but mine's a _lot _better," she said, roaming off with the white dish in her small hand.

Akemi watched the other woman walk away, and she tried to imagine the kind of boredom that would lead a person to want to face _death _rather than endure something dull. As she looked around, Akemi felt the same thing that Rika must have, but in the opposite direction—she had grown up in a world of violence, had even learned to accept it and eventually she _reveled_ in the idea of combat. And yet, like Kaine Hamasaki before her, when she sat in that warmly furnished room with the smell of fresh food and the sounds of friendly laughter all around her, she couldn't help but wonder if she had been wrong about how she could have lived her life.

Minoru had certainly saved her from certain doom, but like Rika said—Akemi became strong shortly after her rescue; she could have gone off on her own, years ago, but for some reason she never thought she wanted to. Was it really okay to _want_ to be a pawn? She always justified it to herself by calling it a debt. She stayed loyal and unquestioning because she owed him her life...and while her undying loyalty had been shaken severely by the information from the night before, what really turned her away from her desire to serve her master was something much simpler—the taste of home-made, family-taught stew and the sensation of being in somebody's long-time home. The Truth taught individuality on such a level that helping one another build a dwelling was expressly forbidden, and yet...she melted into the comforts of a home built and maintained by many. Makoto and her parents must have greatly missed Rika while she was gone.

From behind the closed door of the kitchen, Akemi could hear all four voices; Rika was gleefully chattering away, despite her previous disagreement with her sister. It was so easy for them to go right back to the way things had been. Even though she couldn't make out the specific words through the thick barrier, Akemi felt appropriately stuck on the other side, separate from the happy reunion. She and Rika were from two different worlds, and in the end, Rika belonged in the world that made stew for friends and customers. She didn't belong in the kind of world where death was daily and trust was impossible to hold onto. She quietly wondered where Kaine was at that moment, and hoped that he wasn't having the same moral dilemma as she was. Although Monolith Point appeared peaceful on the surface, their presence was going to make it significantly more dangerous. Minoru wasn't going to take their defection very well. Akemi reached down to her hip, thumbing the hilt of her knife. She wondered how long it would be until she had to draw it again.

She expected that the time would come soon—probably even before the next sundown.

* * *

**I don't want to say that I was 'late' with this one, because it's only been a couple of days since the last one, but I intended to have it done and posted a day ago. I got sidetracked by a math mid-term, but now spring break is coming up. I'll be keeping with a quick update schedule because I absolutely love to write this story, so expect the next chapter soon. Thank you all for reading!**


	23. Jealousy

**Enjoy!**

* * *

"Was it a good idea to leave Akemi by herself back there?" Kaine asked to Tenzo and Kakashi as they stood in an open training location; he was awkwardly trying to distract himself from his incompetence. They had all three left the inn before sunrise, and Akemi was still sleeping when they departed. Rika was up and seemed to be healthy, so it was decided that she and Makoto could see to the newest arrival to Monolith Point. They weren't very far from town, either; the crest of the onyx black rock formation at its middle could be seen easily, though the buildings were obscured by the thick tree trunks that saturated the land. The day was clean and cool, not too bitterly cold or excessively windy. The sun was barely out, but it was beginning to warm away the night's bite.

"She doesn't seem to be going anywhere," Kakashi answered, looking toward the settlement as well. "Besides that, she isn't a prisoner—if she wants to leave, we aren't going to stop her." He had his book out again, and Kaine had been silently wondering how one man could read so much without getting bored. Based on the cover art, it was always the same book series, as well—something romantic, and probably a little bit sleazy. "Try to focus on what Tenzo is telling you," Kakashi added, looking back into his pages.

Kaine looked to the somewhat irritated Tenzo after that, smirking apologetically. "Oh, uh...right..." That interruption had been something like the seventh time he lost focus. He was never a very attentive student, but he had managed to pick up bits and pieces of what he was being taught. He clapped his hands together, forming a few signs—some for water, some for lightning. "Like this...?" Kaine tried, feeling rather silly as nothing noteworthy happened. He was a sensei to his own class, but he felt like he didn't know word one about 'real' techniques. His natural gifts were supposedly the result of a genetic combination, and his training had always been pointed in the wrong direction, preventing him from opening his potential. In hindsight, Minoru was a constant let-down as Kaine instead felt the intellect and experience of Kakashi and Tenzo's methods.

"Closer," Tenzo offered, walking up with a sigh and putting each of his hands on Kaine's wrists. "But you keep trying to knead one, and then the other. You have to do them both at the exact same time. That way, when they mix, they become something different altogether before they manifest." He tried to 'help' Kaine move his arms in synch, but the student was impatient and shook the grasp off of him. Tenzo sighed, stepping back, then went through the same demonstration as he had done four times already. He created a series of signs, and then performed a splash of water against the ground. He followed up with a small lump of rising earth. Then, with a careful emphasis on timing and fluidity, he clapped his hands together and caused a tree to sprout freshly out of the watered mound. "It's an instinctual thing for me, now, but I remember having a long struggle to properly control it."

Kaine nodded, breathing out and shaking his limbs to loosen up. "One more try," he said, then he did as Tenzo demonstrated: he formed a moderately intense lightning technique to start, firing it into the air with a loud crack, but a harmless jolt, causing the hair on Tenzo's neck to stand on end in response to the heightened charge of the atmosphere. He followed up with a similar splash of water, adding it to the well-nourished, fresh tree upon the ground. Taking a deep breath, calming his mind and shutting his eyes, Kaine put forth his best effort to combine them simultaneously. When he tried to release the technique, it fizzled meaninglessly. A single drop of water sprinkled out from between his tightly clamped hands, and when it landed, it jolted the first blade of yellow grass that it contacted with. The poor frond turned black from the singed heat, and a single trail of smoke rose into the air with a wispy silence.

"Damn it," Kaine said after the smoke had dissipated and there was sure to be no surprise 'twist ending' from the tiny droplet. He had been hoping for some spectacular explosion, or an earthquake, or maybe even some gigantic tree made of lightning to sprout from the grass. Instead, it was the same result every time. He could feel his chakra coming together, but as it did, it refused to take on a unique form and simply dribbled out as a poorly-mixed waterbolt. "Are you _sure_ I can even do it?"

"If you couldn't, I doubt you'd be coming so close to it," Tenzo answered, putting his hand to the cloth-lined surface of his chin, thinking deep. "Just keep practicing, and we'll figure out what you're doing wrong. It might be as simple as having the wrong amount of air in your lungs, or as complicated as needing to create the right conditions in the atmosphere for the result to properly form. Anyway, for now, we don't have any plans to go on the offensive; we're sticking to defense until we can get new orders from the Hokage."

"So we've got nothing but time and worries to brew, then?" Kaine asked, sneering with disappointment. He looked at his own hands, gloveless and scarred between the digits. They were the hands of a working man; of a soldier. He needed to keep things moving, or else he was going to turn soft in Monolith Point, and so he kept a constant flow of energy running down his arms and out of his fingertips. He tried every method he could think of in order to trigger his assumed 'new ability,' but he got nothing but a pathetic little raindrop each time.

Tenzo folded his arms and deflated his chest. "Just keep at it; it can take years to master something like this if you weren't born with the knowledge of how to do it. Not every kekkei genkai manifests in the same way, but you'll figure it out. The worst case scenario is that you train for years and finally give up, but by that time you'll probably have greatly honed your chakra capacity and control. There's nowhere to go but up, Kaine." Tenzo nodded, clapping his hand to his temporary student's shoulder.

The younger man didn't seem to appreciate the contact, shrugging the hand away and glaring up at his teacher. "Don't touch me, I'm concentrating," Kaine grumbled, closing his eyes and trying again.

Kakashi closed his book. "Kaine, I think I know what your problem is. It's common in rowdy upstarts like you." He was leaning against a tree, half-sleeping, but then he stood straight and focused his eye on the frustrated learner. Before Kaine had time to be offended, Kakashi continued talking: "You don't do well with simple repetition, so we're not actually getting anywhere like this." Kakashi looked to Tenzo, who nodded in silent confirmation. "It's something you need to unlock through combat training."

"What is it? Do you want me to embarrass myself against you a second time, Kakashi?" Kaine asked, his eyes narrow and his lower jaw pushed out in annoyance. "Fat chance."

Kakashi closed his eye and cocked his head aside. "Oh, no; you won't be facing _me_," he said, waving a non-committal hand. "Tenzo should be more than enough of a challenge for you." Kakashi looked to his partner, who was pressing his hands together and tightly cracking his knuckles.

Kaine tilted his head. "Really? Well, this shouldn't be too hard," he said with his usual cockiness. He pressed his hands together and created a charge of lightning to course through one of his arms, flexing his fist and drawing it back, ready to fight.

"No no," Tenzo said, raising one finger in protest. "It's not just a fight; it's a fight to unlock your technique. We can't expect you to learn anything if you just do what you've always done, can we?"

Kaine growled. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're too good at what you already do; if you don't try to do anything differently, you're not going to learn anything _new_. We need you to push yourself, so don't use any of your familiar techniques—for this battle, if you're going to use ninjutsu, it should only be an attempt to knead it together into Storm Release."

Kaine lowered his shoulders, his eyes half-lidded to show his flat annoyance. "Well that sounds stupid," he mumbled, opening his fist and dispersing the electrical charge to return it to his body.

"Stupid or not, we're going to give it a try, aren't we?" Tenzo asked, putting on a combat stance.

Kaine shrugged, looking like a brat with the curled pout of his lips. "Fine, whatever you say, 'master'," he said before he charged forward, seeking to engage Tenzo by surprise. Tenzo wasn't _quite_ as skilled as Kakashi, and there was no dancing around that fact—still, he was a Jonin member of the Anbu with a bloodline technique whose all-time users could be counted on a single hand. He was far from a pushover.

As Kaine got close, Tenzo formed the simple, near-spherical seal of interlaced fingers that triggered his own ability. Wood sprouted out from the ground to nab the blindly-charging youth around the ankles, catching him mid-stride and throwing him off of his balance to drop his face toward the grass. Kaine reacted to the fall, and just before he planted himself like a tree, his hand came forward to catch himself. Using his hand as leverage, he thrashed his legs and forced himself free of the tripping root, then he sprung off of that momentum to launch his legs toward Tenzo's chest.

He found nothing, as Tenzo had side-stepped the attempt and chuckled easily. "You're quick on your feet," he praised, but clearly the quickness wasn't enough. Kaine's wild momentum struck a tree along the rim of their training area, taking a thick chunk out of its side and showering the area with tiny splinters. He disengaged from the cratered bark, his foot having been buried in its dense wood for a moment. "But that kind of attack's not going to help, either," Tenzo said as he formed another seal. "You have to explore your chakra, not your stamina. If you tire yourself out uselessly by trying to kick my head off, you're just going to waste a day—try not to forget what this exercise is for. It's not about proving that you're stronger than _me; _It's about making _yourself_ stronger, regardless of who's around you."

Kaine spat on the ground, turning around to face Tenzo, glaring at him. "What's the point of having any strength at all, if I'm not stronger than all of the other people around me?"

Tenzo grumbled, his newly-formed seal coming to life in the form of a series of wooden pikes—they rose out of the ground to surround Kaine, and were aimed to impale him. "We're stronger as a unit, Kaine," he said while the latter frantically jumped to escape the onslaught. Tenzo's timber followed behind, the pikes forming into thicker, square-bodied tendrils that chased after the fleeing subject. "You don't have to be the strongest in the world to be strong enough to make a _difference_."

Kaine tried desperately to outrun the wood, but as he hopped to and fro, he realized that the entire battlefield was quickly becoming covered by it. Living lumber rated low on the list of things that Kaine ever expected to be afraid of, but for a while he felt that suffocating sensation of being completely _trapped_. He flashed back to his time in the hospital bed, bound and helpless against Tenzo's shackles. He froze up as he remembered it, briefly forgetting what was happening as a primal fear struck him.

He was stricken by panic, stumbling from his next step and falling to the ground. The chasing wood caught him around the ankles and tightly bound him in place. He tried to kick himself free, but it was too thick—he clawed against the dirt, his feral instinct driving him to drag himself away, but it was no use. His capture was solid. He reached down in fright, completely ignoring the purpose of the session and charging his hand with lightning to attempt to sever the wood's hold upon him. His charged hand was caught at the wrist by Tenzo's own, a tight grip that yanked Kaine's arm away from the wood.

After a long moment of watching the quiver upon Kaine's mouth, his captor spoke up. "You're afraid..." Tenzo understood, and the thought caused his eyes to widen even further than their usual boldness. Forming a seal that undid the bindings around Kaine's ankles, Tenzo released his wrist as well and then leaned down to help him stand. Kaine brushed him off and gave a feral grunt of anger, bringing himself up without assistance. Tenzo put his hand back to his own thoughtful chin. "Is that why you can't do it, Kaine?"

Kaine was breathing hard, covered in sweat despite the coolness of the morning. He wiped his brow and shook his arms and legs, making positively sure that his limbs were all free to move. His eyes were bloodshot, his mouth dry with the heaving of his lingering panic. He took a few quick gulps of air, then looked to Tenzo with hesitation. He clenched a tight fist, turning his eyes down to his tanned fingers and searching for the power that was supposedly lurking at his potential command. "Freaks like you, Tenzo," Kaine said after a few seconds, pertaining to his unique power. "They get locked up, right?"

Tenzo softened, his arms uncrossing and falling to his sides. "The world sometimes doesn't appreciate the power of a kekkei genkai, it's true...but this isn't the Bloody Mist Village—this is the Land of Fire, and we cherish our people more than anything. Are you one of our people, Kaine?"

Kaine was still studying the cracks and wrinkles around his knuckles, picturing himself in chains and being tortured. His childhood had contained plenty of that, but he never really knew why—he was too young to understand why his parents were gone; why he had been forced to wander a war-torn wasteland in search of food, water, and survival. He had always assumed that they were killed as soldiers, but could it have been something more specific? "One of your people..." Kaine echoed thoughtfully, then clenched his teeth and blurted with spitefulness: "I can't be one of yours, just like I can't be one of _his _anymore."

Tenzo sighed a bit, rubbing his forehead beneath the solid metal faceplate. "Sorry Kaine, that's not what I meant at all...I'm not asking for your loyalty or submission; I don't aim to put you to work for us against your will. You're not a prisoner, either, this time. If you want to go, neither I nor Kakashi are going to stop you. What I really meant to ask you, is...do you _want_ to be a person that we trust and protect? Do you want to be one of our people...? One of our _friends_?" He was met with silence for a long moment; a bewildered stare. He clarified in a calm, clear voice that had strong undertones of compassion: "We don't have any intentions of abusing or manipulating your power; we only want to help you attain it. Do you understand that?"

Kaine gulped, only barely shaking loose his irrational fear of being confined. He wanted more than anything to stay free—to avoid being a bird in a cage. He listened to what he was told, and as the words washed down his ears like a tender rainfall, he found the message impossible to comprehend. As his eyes trembled with realization, Kaine looked to Tenzo with a blank expression. "No, I...I don't understand. I _can't_ understand..." His voice was hollow and unsettled, barely sounding like himself. Kaine Hamasaki had been replaced by a being that looked exactly like him, yet had an entirely different attitude.

Tenzo looked shocked by the reply, and he looked to Kakashi for insight. Kakashi returned a grave silence, looking to Kaine as well and narrowing his eye before speaking up. "This world has been unkind to you, hasn't it?" It went without saying. Kaine wasn't much older than Naruto, but he was old enough to have experienced the tail end of the Third War—and the oppression of the Bloody Mist. It was difficult to pin down the source of his agony, but there were dozens of possibilities. "If I could have told you that Susumu Hyuga was a good man at heart, I would have...but he isn't. Like you, he was wronged by the world and its people, but unlike you, he has fallen too far into the abyss to ever see the light again. It's not too late for you to come back to us, Kaine. You can have happiness if that's what you want." Kakashi felt Obito and Naruto both cropping up in his words, and the thought gave him a swell of pride. Their wills were still strong within him, despite his natural tendencies toward being a killer.

"I don't believe you, Kakashi," Kaine finally said, his teeth grinding harshly together as his hands made seals. "I've heard it all before...'we want you to be safe', 'we only want to help you out'..." Kaine finished his seals, and just before he made another chakra form, he abruptly brought his hand to his forehead in response to a jolt of mental pain. The anguish became a real, physical sensation like he was being stabbed through the brain by a syringe. Memories flooded in; memories of compassionate voices, of reassuring promises. Memories of Danzo Shimura. He followed up with a careful whisper, speaking through confusion. "I think I remember, now..."

Kakashi blinked, and so did Tenzo. They were both ready to subdue their unpredictable charge if necessary, but they allowed him to process his thoughts for himself. Tenzo was the next one to speak, knowing for certain that he was the one who Kaine had the most reason to trust—despite his wood style apparently being the source of Kaine's fearful reaction, it was also true that Tenzo had saved multiple lives that mattered, and had undeniably known the truth of living with a kekkei genkai. "What is it that you remember, Kaine...?" Tenzo prodded cautiously, keeping a quiet air to his words to avoid disrupting the troubled young adult's train of thought.

"The Leaf...they—no, _you—_were the first ones to take me in..." Kaine huddled onto the ground, cradling his head underneath his arms and folding himself over his knees. "Lord Danzo...he had me as one of his students," He looked into his own mind, picking away at the pieces. "He tried to make me like you...he tried to make me a _liar_..." Kaine stared at his own palm, and he saw it covered in blood. "A murderer..." he trembled, shaking his hand abruptly as he tried to get rid of the permanent stain. It remained in his sight no matter how hard he wished for it to go away.

Tenzo looked to Kakashi, and Kakashi once again nodded. The copy ninja had been expecting it to happen sooner or later; it had been coming ever since Kaine's first stay in the hospital. Tenzo took a step closer, and Kaine was too engrossed in his self-torture to react in any meaningful way. "It's alright, Kaine; let yourself remember," Tenzo encouraged, getting close enough to put a hand on the other's shoulder. He wasn't brushed away that time.

"I was kept in a _cage_," Kaine continued, shuddering with the word. "I always hated cages..." he recalled, eyes turned to the ground when they weren't closed tightly. "There was a final exam for all the kids...I was just a _kid_, Tenzo," he said, gulping down a hard lump. "We were forced to kill each other, like the Mist used to do..."

Regretfully, Tenzo had to face the reality. With as much kindness as his smooth voice could summon up, he asked the question: "Who did you have to kill, Kaine?" Tenzo asked, trying to follow any thread he could grasp.

Kaine chuckled joylessly. "Actually, I lost," he admitted, reaching down to his stomach as he recalled another wound there, fresh in his head despite being a decade old. "Stabbed in the meaty gut," he said. "Bleeding out, should've been dead, but..." he reached his gaze out to the sky, feeling the sun on his face. He certainly wasn't in a cage that day. "I heard a _voice_ calling out to me. Faint, indescribable, but a voice that knew my name. 'Kaine Hamasaki', it said to me...'you're not meant to die yet. Stand up, move on. Find your purpose.'" He loosened up a little bit, rolling onto his back and consequently falling away from Tenzo's comforting hand. "The only reason I ever knew my own name was because the voice told it to me...I think I went insane and never realized it."

Tenzo smirked, glad to see that the shock of remembrance had seemingly passed. It was difficult to recoil from such a thing. "We've all got our bouts with insanity...Just look at Kakashi; he can't seem to put down those trashy books of his," Tenzo chimed toward Kakashi, who reacted with a mildly offended stare.

"I'll have you know that the Make-Out Tactics series is a body of modern classics. Jiraiya is an under-appreciated _master_ of the art, and it takes a man with true sensibilities to get the meaning behind his works," Kakashi said dramatically, fighting off the seriousness of the moment. Even _he_ had to admit when things were getting too gloomy.

Kaine let a smile tug at his lips. Maybe things weren't so bad around those people, after all. The comfort contrasted with the images flashing in his head. He continued to walk himself through it. "When I finally _did_ open my eyes, I was in a pit full of bodies. I smelled some kind of smoke, but it wasn't a scent like a cooking fire...I think somebody must have been burning the bodies, and the ones like me who were still breathing, but I didn't look around to see. All I could do was follow the voice...'survive,' it kept saying to me, and so I kept listening. Til now, I never knew who put me in that place, or why. I had always figured that the pain I felt had something to do with the war, you know?"

Tenzo hummed. "Well, that explains why the file we have on you seems to be so complete. After you failed and were cast out, you came back, didn't you?"

Kaine nodded, his breaths settling at last as he looked to the sky. The clouds were fluffy and white, and the background was a rich blue. It seemed like the forest was dwelling safely under the ocean, and the clouds were the bottoms of fishing boats floating above. "Not at first, and I didn't really mean to...I wandered for what felt like years. I saw a lot of death and a lot of fire, and I met a lot of people who must have seen potential in me—saw a way to abuse me. I really didn't remember the training I had, but my _body_ did, I guess. Even though I failed the final test, I must have learned a lot."

"Did you ever meet Orochimaru, or Kabuto Yakushi?" Tenzo asked, crouched beside the lazy-looking Kaine.

The youngest one shook his head. "No, never; not that I can recall, anyhow." Kaine sat up, propped onto his elbows. "You guys don't seem very surprised by any of this...Did you already know what happened?"

Kakashi answered, this time. "Not specifically, no, but I spotted something unusual while you were in the hospital under our care. It was a restriction that even the Byakugan would have had trouble noticing—something that was probably placed by a Sharingan. I thought for a while that you were working with Itachi Uchiha, but if it's actually Danzo, then...he must have had some compulsion to suppress your memories. What I dispelled was an old seal; much older than the genjutsu you were probably under when you were sent out here by our current Hokage."

Kaine ran his hand through his hair, greasy and covered in dirt as he thoughtfully rolled his head around in the leaves. "So...You're saying that I've been jerked around by the Leaf for my entire life?"

Kakashi hummed. "So it would seem. I apologize for what you've gone through, but there are things about the Leaf that even the Hokage isn't privy to. Danzo, especially, is an obsolete relic of a troubled past. The Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, was constantly at odds with his ambitions, and they feuded privately on numerous occasions. It was kept largely out of the public eye—the younger generation behind Tenzo and me is all but oblivious to Danzo's existence. He's still twisting gears underground, but it's difficult to challenge his decisions. Regarding Danzo, the stance of the older generations is a policy of willful ignorance..." Kakashi sighed, lifting his headband and opening his Sharingan to look at Kaine. "Or a forced ignorance, like in your case. Even the dead and dying bodies must have been branded to prevent the secrets of Root from escaping. I'm surprised it took so long for your memories to crop back up, but I'm glad that they returned."

"You're glad about it, even though my memories only give me more reasons to hate the Leaf?" Kaine muttered in disbelief, probably expecting a different reaction.

"I'm glad that you've seen our dark side...because now, you should more greatly appreciate the light that Tenzo and I fight to protect." Kakashi stepped over Kaine with his Sharingan exposed, looked him straight in the eye and allowing him to gaze back into the red iris. "There's darkness in everyone, and we're each constantly fighting ourselves to hold it down...The Village Hidden in the Leaves is no different. We hold its darkness back by banding together, but it occasionally slips through the cracks to harm people like you, people like Susumu, and people like Sasuke Uchiha..."

"I know all about the Uchiha," Kaine interjected, staring into the sanguine disc of Kakashi's eye without fear. "They were slaughtered from within, right? How can you casually look me in the eyes like that and tell me that your village has such light when all I've ever seen is the shadow it casts?"

"Our past is murky, but I have hope for the future," Kakashi said heavily. "We're finally witnessing a generation that can grow up without facing the harsh reality of war. Even if folks like us have to carry the weight of our sins—the weight of loss—we can shepherd our students into a world of comfort and progress."

"A world of weakness, you mean," Kaine said, thinking that he was offering a correction.

"A stronger world than any that we've ever known," Kakashi answered back. "A world that my friend Obito would have loved."

"Obito?" Kaine questioned.

Kakashi nodded, crouched down with his arms resting lazily on his knees. He looked up into the blue of the sky, thinking back. "Let me tell you where I got this eye, Kaine. Let me tell you why it's so very important that I continue to believe in a better future for us all. I have hope because ultimately, there's somebody who needs to see a peaceful era through this eye of ours...and because there is a student of mine who I think is going to play a crucial role in that era's arrival."

Kaine stayed on the ground, lying on his back as he listened to Kakashi launch into a brief but inspirational account of Obito and Naruto's hopes and dreams.

* * *

Rika's stew was definitely better. Akemi had tried to avoid any bias in her judgement, but it was the only conclusion that she could draw. Makoto took it well enough, but she was pouty, as expected—a friendly, kind-of-adorable pouty, but it was pouting nonetheless. "I'll do better next time," the younger sister said, trying to avoid looking pitiful. Rika was looking smug and self-satisfied, which suited Akemi just fine. She wanted her student to look good, even if it meant she might have been a little bit biased after all.

"Ahhh, that was _way _too satisfying," Akemi announced, stretching in a prolonged way for the second time that morning. She felt a little sluggish after two hefty bowls of stew, but she had to admit that a stomach that was overloaded carried a much nicer sensation than one that was empty and starving. "Gonna go walk some of this off, I think," she added, patting her flat tummy and standing up out of her chair. She thumbed the hilt of her dagger, once again checking to be sure that it was in her reach before she turned away to leave the inn and enter the morning air. She expected it to be dewy and slick, but the dry spell was still going strong. Not even the warmed windows were showing any droplets of water.

She decided that she was made thirsty by the feeling of standing on the dusty ground, and rather than turn right back around and ask for water from the Mori family, she set off to find a stream. She knew that she had passed one on the way into town, and had a vague idea of which direction to take, so she took it without a word. Some part of her was looking for a fight, hoping to run into a few stray enemy scouts. She was already pent up with unused energy as a result of her wonderful night's sleep, and the weight of her breakfast had already slowed her down in some imperceptible, too-civilized way. She needed to get rid of the stale webs that gathered in her senses.

She shortly reached the stream at its nearest curve, kneeling down beside it and reaching in to cup some clear water into her strong hands, splashing herself on the face and humming with delight. She drank down a few steady gulps from a second handful, letting some stray droplets trickle down her chin and neck, feeling wondrous in the chilly air. The sun was warming, but not hot, and the breeze was yet to catch up to the smooth, velvety blanket of still air. Akemi began to run the liquid down the length of her hair, wringing it out and combing through it with her fingers to fish out any dead or loosened strands. Even as a soldier, she took some pride in her appearance. The chunk that was sliced out by one of Mamban's shuriken had been smoothed over, but her hair was shortened overall in the attempts to even it out. Still, it dipped past her shoulders and caught the breeze nicely.

From behind, Akemi heard footsteps, but she could tell right away that they didn't belong to an enemy ninja. They were alarmingly clumsy, but still softly fallen—an odd combination, but one that could only belong to Makoto. Without turning her head, Akemi closed her eyes and answered the approach with a warning. "Don't sneak up on a shinobi, little girl; you're bound to get hurt."

There was a brief little squeak of surprise. She must have thought she was sneakier than she was. Makoto was indeed back there, and with her jig given up, she huffily got closer and sat herself down on her knees beside the stream. "Hey, Miss Akemi..."

Akemi smirked. "I told you last night to call me Aki, didn't I?"

The other girl nodded with a smile. She was a bit chubby and her cheeks had a couple of oddly placed divots, but she wasn't ugly. Rika must have inherited all the perfect skin and proportions from their mother, and Makoto took more after their portly father. All together, the family looked pretty average. "Okay, okay...I'll remember you as Aki, then," Makoto answered. "I promise."

Akemi reached over to ruffle the younger girl's short hair. It wasn't curled like her sister's, but it felt decent to play with all the same. Just like Rika, Makoto didn't take kindly to the disruption, trying to swat the hand away. Akemi withdrew, humming with a low pitch. "You and your sister seemed like you were having some kind of a disagreement."

Makoto shrugged. She was dressed in thick wool pants and a sagging shirt, her frame almost entirely hidden from view. She was situated on Akemi's right, and her right hand was tucked under the hem of her shirt, kept out of the other woman's sight. "Yeah...we have a lot of little fights, but isn't that how siblings manage to stay close?"

Akemi pursed her lips, going back to her own hair with clean, wet fingers. Her headband was left behind; for the first time in a _long_ time, she was out in the open without the forehead protector in place. "I guess so, yeah. Did Rika ever tell you that she was bored of her life here?"

"Not really, but I started to notice that she frowned a lot." Makoto pointed to her dimpled cheeks with her left hand, then curved her thick lips into a downward slant. "I asked about it a couple of times, but she told me not to worry...so I didn't."

"Do _you _ever get bored?" Akemi asked, looking over at the baggy clothes the other was wearing. "Haven't you got any grand ambitions you'll never fulfill because you're locked up with your family around here?"

Makoto shook her head, short black tresses splaying around in the wind. "Nope, I never get bored. I've got a lot of friends here."

"How about a boyfriend?" Akemi needled, fishing for some flustering.

Predictably, there was a blush on the plain girl's face and a quickness to turn her eyes away from the seemingly all-knowing blonde. Makoto tried to sound unsure, but in her mind, she was already practically married to the dolt that they both had some unexplained respect for. She curled her hair around the fingers of her left hand like a nervous distraction, but kept the right one out of view. "I guess you could say I kind of maybe have a little bit of a fleeting interest in somebody."

"That's a mouthful," Akemi chuckled quickly. "Anybody I know?"

"Sorta?" Makoto answered, inventing a new shade of red as her flesh took on a beet-like tone. She was too easy. "Maybe...yeah, you could _say_ that you probably know him."

"Is it...Tenzo?" Akemi asked, deliberately teasing.

Makoto blinked, pulling her head back in slight surprise and creating a little bit of a ring under her chin as her flesh pressed together. "No, it's not Tenzo...why? Do _you_ think Tenzo's hot?"

Akemi rolled her eyes, making a so-so gesture. "I can see how somebody would think so, but he's not really my_ type_, you know?"

"Who's more your type?" Makoto asked, taking her turn for pointed questions and trying to narrow down the list.

"You could certainly say that it's somebody we both know," Akemi teased, running the back of her hand along the edge of her own cheek. "But that's all you're gonna get out of me, alright? I'm the one doing the interrogating, here."

Makoto probably felt threatened by the answer, but she kept it under the surface. "Is it who I think it is, Aki?" She sounded jealous.

Akemi wagged her finger. "Hey, I said no more. I'm not an easy book to open." She took a slow breath, then, moving from her crouch beside the stream and standing up to her full height. Little flecks of dark broth were still dotting along her shirt—it was actually the only shirt she brought with her. She hadn't initially planned to be away for very long. It had a few other stains: dirt from the battle, and dye-like splotches from berries long since eaten. She studied herself, then looked pointedly to her open hand. She spoke with a dangerous depth, looking with stern green orbs toward the younger girl still knelt and trembling beside her. "Don't you do it, Makoto..." Akemi's face was hardened, the ferocity of her voice sending a clear message.

Makoto blinked, looking up toward Akemi with a tilted head. "Don't do what, Aki...?"

"I'm not dumb...Did you honestly think you could hide it from me? I'm telling you right now, Makoto Mori: if you try to do what you came here to do...?" Akemi answered tentatively, all the humor gone from her voice. "...I _won't_ hesitate to kill you. Even if you're Hamasaki's little girlfriend, I'm not going to take it easy on you. I want to make that _perfectly clear_—if you try it, I will _end_ you. Your blood will flow plentifully into this stream, I'll clean a few little dabs of it it off of my knife, and then I'll go on my merry little way like it never even happened." She thumbed the dagger at her hip, flicking against its edge guard to slide an inch of its silvery, shining blade free of its dark, abyssal sheathe. "I'll probably even whistle a jaunty tune."

Makoto's face darkened as well, her right arm tightening as her grip squeezed on the object she was holding aside. She raised her arm from beneath her shirt—within her grasp was a long knife, razor sharp and still marked by a few strands of potato skin. She had probably used it to prepare the very stew which was sloshing in Akemi's stomach. "It's too late, though," the younger girl said, her tone turning into something dull and shapeless. "I _need _to do it."

Akemi drew her own blade, holding it idly at her side and tapping its flat edge against her outer thigh. "Why, though?" It was all she could think to ask, trying to read the bizarre actions taken by the odd girl. The experienced shinobi had easily noticed the knife in a reflection through the stream the moment the hostess arrived, but she never felt particularly threatened by it. The serving girl was no ninja; Akemi wondered if it was simply jealousy that brought Makoto's mind toward such an extreme resolution so quickly. Jealousy _did_ often make little girls and boys do dangerous, stupid things.

"I can't stop it, now," Makoto said cryptically. She stood up, brandishing the chopping knife awkwardly in both of her tiny hands, its slender tip pointed upright. "I have to do it for _him!_" Makoto lunged forth, clumsy and slow. She tried her hardest to put the knife straight through Akemi's throat, and the morning sun was reflected brightly off the lethal implement. Akemi felt a profound sadness creeping through her nerves as she was compelled to respond to the foolhardy assault.

The sound of a knife slicing into wet, living flesh traveled modestly through the morning air. A gruesome streak of thickly-red blood splashed into the once-clear water of the peacefully running stream.

* * *

**Next chapter coming soon.**


	24. Shattered Peace

**Enjoy!**

* * *

"We can't trust him," Medo said to Minoru as the barrier was lowered and a flood of black-robed, white-masked figures marched past the border carrying sacks of dry rations. "You know that, right?"

"Of course, Medo," Minoru replied, setting a mentor's hand on the nearby male's shoulder. "It is a temporary arrangement, only in effect until I can determine a more permanent solution to the problem that Mamban represents."

Medo had the dark skin of a Land of Lightning native, and his irises sparkled with the color of gold, though it was confined to a thin ring around his large pupils. He was taller than Minoru, and wider with muscle and bone density. He had on the typical clothes of a Jonin, complete with the custom-dyed blue vest of the Truth. His headband was like the rest; the plate was crafted from stone and a unique symbol was carved upon its face: Medo had chosen a simple circle, hollow on the inside. His face had age lines; he was the oldest member of the village, physically, but one of the newer additions to the settlement's history when compared to its founders. "Do you think the others are going to come back?" he asked, referring to his missing fellow teachers.

Minoru shook his head. "I am doubtful. As I'm sure you've noticed, Kaine Hamasaki has always been a wild card, and if he was able to fully convince Akemi to follow him, then Rika will remain gone as well. Mm, what a shame this is; for some time, I was grooming the treacherous young man for leadership. I suppose there's no harm in telling you now—I wanted Kaine to take over my position, should some unfortunate fate have ever befallen me."

Already, villagers were crowding around the arriving relief package, digging into the piled sacks and coming out with nuts, grains, dried fruit, and beef jerky. "I always thought your successor was a toss-up between him and Akemi," Medo answered, keeping suspicious eyes on the foodstuffs flowing in.

"Candidly, it was always going to be Kaine. Akemi Yamaguchi is a superb battle strategist, but she has a submissive nature that prevents her from sufficiently carrying out any difficult political responsibilities." Minoru hummed, still saddened by the loss of such valuable pawns. Fortunately, new food supplies meant the reinforcement of the remainder's loyalty. He had come dangerously close to losing his grip on some of the fringe cases. Minoru knew that Medo would stay loyal, intoxication or not, but he could not guarantee the same from the rest—once, he would have had absolute confidence in Akemi's subservience, too.

"That's fair," Medo said, his hard lips squeezed together and his thick fingers clenching along his bicep. "Do you think that, if Kaine were in your place, he would have made an alliance with this character?"

Minoru shook his head. "No, I think that Kaine probably would have died by now if he were to be in my position."

Medo laughed, a genuine amusement in his gruff voice. "Then it's a good thing you aren't going anywhere."

"I won't leave this life until my people have won their freedom forever." Minoru turned away from Medo, wandering off to see to other parts of the operation. The alliance was a rather sudden twist, and the details had not yet been properly ironed out. The procurement of food was made the top priority, but the politics would come next. Mamban was sure to insist upon joint control of the village, despite his promises to maintain the status quo. Medo didn't know very much about the secretive meeting, but he could see that things were rapidly changing. Although Mamban himself had been conspicuously absent, his troops were everywhere.

Medo didn't like the deal, and neither did Minoru. Medo sneered, and when Minoru was out of his own sight, he hopped down from the wooden roof he had been sitting upon, landing lightly upon the yellowed grass beneath. The leaves had been cleared out as they fell, so the ground was relatively clear compared to the wilder segments of the forest. He was hungry, but he allowed the various youths to have the first pick of the new meals.

As the numbers and excitement thinned out, Medo stepped up to one of the ravaged sacks and plucked out a few spare shreds of jerky, nibbling on them. There was a silent soldier standing beside the bag, and Medo smirked toward him. "Got you on lunch duty, eh?" he chided, nudging the male figure with a stern elbow. There was no response, save for a slight turn of a masked head. "...not very talkative, eh?" Medo mumbled, taking a few extra morsels from the bag and then turning to walk off, breaking away from the awkward non-exchange. The whole situation had him paranoid, but it was too late to worry. The barrier was down and the village was flooded with those unusual figures. All he could do was trust his master's decision.

He went to the training field. It was still early in the morning, but one of his 'new' students was already there. Medo had been given most of Kaine and Akemi's leftovers, and he was glad to have the chance to meet one. "Tito, right?" Medo asked the young man who was hunched over a bowl filled with walnuts. The reply he got was a slow nod, but it was obvious that the pupil's attention was consumed by the savory flavors in his mouth. "My name's Medo...do you mind me asking what you're doing here so early? Lessons don't start for another few hours."

Tito shrugged, nomming down on his breakfast, lunch, and dinner as a single meal. "I guess I'm here because I keep expecting Akemi-sensei and Kaine-sensei to return. They walked off pretty suddenly; do you know where they went, Medo-sensei?"

Medo shook his head. "Not a clue, big guy," he answered, taking his own seat at the center of Akemi's former training ring. The largest training circle was going to become _his_ if she never came back, and he decided that he could live with those terms. "Our Master Minoru told me that they're all going to be gone for a long time; in fact, he doesn't expect them to come back. If you want to see them, you'll have to track 'em down yourself."

Tito sighed, swallowing a huge gulp. "I wish the teachers would come back...but the one I miss the most is Rika," he said, pondering the third missing person.

"Rika Mori? Why, what's special about her?" Medo asked. He had seen the curly-haired girl from a distance when she was training after-hours with Akemi, but he had never introduced himself. It seemed like the two of them had some kind of secret pact, and it wasn't in his nature to butt into stuff like that.

"Nothing really special, but I did try to date her a few times back home." Tito took another massive handful of his snack. "Kept getting turned down."

"Ahh, I see. Well, we've got plenty of choice women around here, still. Hell, now that Kaine's not sapping up all the attention, you're probably the most eligible bachelor around, yeah?" Medo gave Tito a light thump on the elbow with a balled fist, meant to be playful. Tito was bowled over by it. As the dust settled, Medo pulled his hand back in surprise. "Erm...well, we can _say that_, anyway." Medo rolled his eyes as the younger man tried to scoop up everything that spilled from his dish during the tumble. Tito was mostly muscle, but somehow he felt like a piece of wet cardboard.

"You guys are all so strong; why can't _I_ be like that?" Tito recalled the time when Akemi knocked him over the same way, wholly without meaning to. "It looks like you shinobi don't even have to _try_."

Medo shook his head in denial. "No, believe me, it takes a lot of training. You're just now getting started; you'll be a force to be reckoned with in no time at all. What's your nature affinity, anyway? Have you gotten that far?"

"Nope, I don't know, yet," Tito said, "I haven't been able to trigger the paper."

Medo tugged his jaw back a bit, looking to the side and trying to avoid showing his disappointment. What kind of first-year students did he accidentally inherit? "Don't sweat it, we'll get you there. Meanwhile, what do you think of our new friends?"

"How do you mean?" Tito licked up a stray bit of jerky from his lip.

"Well, have any of them said any words to you? For me, they give a bad feeling...something under the skin, licking at the bones." Medo brushed a hand through his own thick, reddish hair, all wavy with spikes in untold directions.

"Not a word," Tito answered, looking down into his empty wooden bowl. "But they brought us all this food. That makes them our friends, right?"

"Sadly, it's _never_ that simple, Tito..." Medo held up his pointer finger, aiming it toward the heavens. "Lesson one: you should always be suspicious of a generous peace offering."

"Are you saying that I shouldn't eat this stuff?" Tito asked, having no idea what to make of the lesson. He was as sheltered and trusting as they came.

"Eh, it's a bit late for that, isn't it?" Medo delivered, knocking the empty bowl out of Tito's hand and high into the air, then catching its rim along his pointing finger to twirl it in thought. "No, you might as well eat...just keep an eye out for me, okay? If you see any of these creepers poking around where they shouldn't be, come get me right away."

Tito nodded. "Yes, sir. Just...one question—where shouldn't they be?"

Medo knew he was expecting too much. "For starters, they shouldn't get anywhere near Master Minoru's chambers. Even if he's the one who invited them, I don't trust them to get too close to our dear leader. Don't confront them, though...just come to find me. Do you understand?" Medo kept his eyes on the hills that formed a natural barricade around the training field; the terrain was evened out by earth users before he arrived in the village, but he could tell by the surrounding topography that the area used to be a steep valley. Interesting, given how the residential area was painstakingly laid out to prevent any disruption to the natural growth of the forest.

"I'll see what I can see, Medo-sensei," Tito confirmed, yawning and then laying on his back under the morning sun. "Since we're already here, do you think you could try to help me find my chakra? Kaine wasn't much help."

Medo laughed like a bison's call. "He never is, kid. Stand up; let's see what you're missing." Medo set the bowl aside, then got onto his feet, dragging Tito up along with him by the collar. Though they didn't know it yet, it was the beginning of a very long day.

* * *

Technically, she didn't lie that time—Akemi _didn't_ hesitate just because Makoto was Hamasaki's little girlfriend. In plain fact, the reason why Akemi wound up hesitating was because Makoto was Rika's sister. Akemi came quite close to slicing the girl's pretty little neck, but mid-swipe she switched the course of her dagger in an attempt to knock the knife out of her assassin's dainty hand. She couldn't go throug with the slaying; she saw too much of Rika in the chubby younger sibling's face. Before she could steer it away, though, she hit something else—something far more solid, but just as fleshy. She felt her weapon's steel blade puncture skin and slip between bone, and it drew blood, sending a thick gush of it into the stream to be carried away by the pristine flow.

It wasn't Makoto's blood, nor Akemi's—it was Kaine's. He had put himself between the two women, one of his hands shoving Makoto backward and out of harm's way, and the other catching Akemi's blade. In desperation, he didn't have the time to choose his angle of interception. Given how skilled his sister was, it was purely the result of good luck that he was able to intercept her at all. As a result, he had to let the blade slip straight into his palm, impaling his hand entirely. A thick, syrupy redness soaked over the cold metal when it emerged on the other side of his palm, leaking down over his wrist and forearm. His bloody fingers clamped around the weapon's edge guard and Akemi's fist. He was squeezing tightly and his eyes were spread wide, decorated by crimson streaks of bloodshot fury.

Akemi was shocked by the intervention. "Hamasaki, what the hell are you—" she started to blurt, but was interrupted. Kaine used his grip on her hand to pull her whole body inward, knocking their bare foreheads together and sending her reeling back. To follow it up, he released her hand and pointed a heavy kick into her torso, connecting heavily and blowing her away from himself to send her through a flimsy tree, the whole trunk splitting in half behind the collision. The bloody knife was left behind, and Kaine yanked it out of his hand to throw it into the dirt beside his feet.

Makoto's tiny body hit the ground after Kaine's defensive push just as Akemi gathered up her senses and twisted herself in the air to land on her feet against the stream's bank, crouched down with one disarmed hand ready at her side, the other reaching around to squeeze her back. The pain of slamming through a tree was not easily ignored. Kaine was already moving in for the kill, ignoring the throbbing burn of his wounded palm and weaving the signs for his water prison. It was a familiar scene, but Akemi knew better than to expect the same result as the last time.

Kaine's eyes were cold, seemingly blank despite their violent rage. He was incensed in a way that Akemi had never seen before. Did the girl he barely knew really mean that much to him? She couldn't dwell on the question for long, since hesitation would certainly mean death while her rival was in such a state. Fighting him upfront was always a bad idea, but with her knife on the other side of his hurried charge, she had a staunchly limited set of options. She was beside a stream, which would just make his already-refined water techniques that much more powerful, and his lightning was a direct counter to her earthen arsenal. Why weren't Kakashi and Tenzo there to stop him, and moreover...why was Makoto trying to kill her at all?

"Chill out, Hamasaki!" Akemi called out, trying to make a plea for sanity. Kaine's flesh was red with blood flow, his ears probably clouded up by the pounding of his own heartbeat—he didn't hear a word she said, didn't even see the begging in her eyes. She was going to have to weather the storm until he snapped out of it. When he got close enough, he reached out to try to trap her in a water prison, but she had seen his trick before. She stomped the ground, creating a steep, narrow crater beneath his left foot, timing it with his steps to disorient him when he was most vulnerable—when his attention was on her torso, and not her limbs.

The ploy worked, sending Kaine into a brief stumble. With the opening made, Akemi reached for his wrist, catching him by the joint to fling him out to one side and step nimbly around him. That time, Kaine was the one who collided with a tree, but his brief imbalance was nothing like Akemi's free-flying impact, and he turned himself around after barely putting a scar into the bark with his solid shoulder. He went after her again, this time with electrical energy surging through his arm and crackling across the lids of his eyes. Crossing his arms into an X over his chest, he braced himself before firing off a concentrated bolt of lightning from his open mouth, accompanied by an otherworldly roar. The air briefly hummed with energy before it was filled with the crackling heat.

Akemi contorted her body to narrowly avoid the arcing path of the bolt, stray bands of energy reaching her right arm and singeing some of the short hair that lined her skin. The bright flash of the lightning assault had blinded them both, but as a result she had been given the momentary chance to conceal her position. She could smell herself burning, and when she was safely hidden behind the body of a fallen tree, she took a momentary breath to collect herself. Although she was itching for action earlier in the morning, she didn't exactly have the current scenario in mind. If she made any noise, Kaine would find her—even her breathing came through perfect silence. She had to make her move at the exact right time, and the success of her scheme hinged on Kaine Hamasaki's legendary predictability. She was getting closer to her goal, pursing her lips and sticking her tongue out narrowly to concentrate. She hyped herself up, giving the silent command in her head when enough time had passed:

_**Go!**_

* * *

"For what it's worth, I don't think your story was boring," Tenzo said, as if trying to appease Kakashi, who had gone a bit sullen. He was getting to the moment of his tale that included Naruto's success against Neji Hyuga in the Chunin exams, hoping to tie it somehow back into Susumu's fall, but Kaine had popped up from the ground in something of a daze and scrambled off mid-sentence. "Do you think we should follow after him to see what's going on?"

Kakashi had watched Kaine sprint away a short while ago, getting that sick pit in his stomach again. "I don't think we'll get the chance," Kakashi whispered with foreboding, reaching into the pouch at the back of his hip to fetch a kunai.

"How right you are!" came a cocky voice from the trees. The area was still saturated with Tenzo's wooden planks, lifeless for quite some time by then. The owner of the voice revealed himself, dropping down from some unseen point in the sky to land with a dextrous foot upon the curved lumber. "Sorry to interrupt...but I've got a bet to win, Kakashi Hatake," the figure said from behind a mask. He was one of the members of Mamban's personal guard, one decorated with a mask like a yellow python.

"A bet?" Kakashi repeated, more surprised by the choice of wording than by the brazen arrival.

"Oh yes, a bet with _him,_" the python said while pointing a finger over toward a dark corner of the area. "He thinks that it'll take the breaking of _forty _of your bones before you'll start screaming for mercy...I think you'll only hold out for _nine_."

From that shadowy area, a second figure approached. A blue mask was on this one. "Don't mind him, Master Hatake. Really, all we want is to offer you a deal," he spoke, his voice a chilling, hollow echo.

Tenzo turned to face the blue one while Kakashi kept his focus on the yellow one. "What kind of a deal?" Tenzo asked with hesitant curiosity, putting his palms together in preparation.

Although the masks hid their expressions, it was clear that the blue one had a twisted smile beneath it. "The first one of the two of you who surrenders to us, and then pledges undying loyalty to our Lord Mamban, is to be given the privilege of surviving the day."

Tenzo smirked, "That's what I figured," he mumbled, and then the wood that covered the battlefield began springing back to life, seeking to trap both of the boldly speaking intruders. At first they were surprised and nearly caught, but just as the tendrils were starting to wrap about the legs, they each managed to jump away in unison and cross paths with one another in the air. With wood chasing behind each one and no time to turn around, they cleared one another's back with thrown explosive tags, the fiery bursts coming out to scatter the trailing wood.

Kakashi was there, following after the instantaneous explosions, leaping up between the intruders to grab at each of their ankles from below, spiraling in the sky and dragging each of Mamban's minions down to slam their masked faces into the wood which Tenzo was still moving closer. As they were both crushed between heavy logs, the minions poofed into clone remnants, causing Kakashi to hum as he landed on one of his partner's sloped, living weapons. Tenzo chose to stop moving the wood around, conserving his chakra, then commented. "Where did they go? I couldn't see through the smoke."

Kakashi peeled up his headband, using his Sharingan to scan their surroundings. "They're close, but I can't spot them," he said. When they arrived, they were very real, and Kakashi hadn't noticed them making the swap with their clones.

"When in doubt," Tenzo started, "look underground." With a clap of his hands, he utilized the earthen half of his affinity, splitting a massive crack into the soil beneath his feet and opening a crevice between himself and Kakashi. As the land pulled apart, the two snake-like villains were caught red-handed. The yellow-masked one seemed to be leading the charge, dragging the blue one along with him with a tunneling technique. As they traveled together, a glistening white sheen was left behind them, beginning on the blue one's hand and spreading out. Tenzo's eyes opened wide. "Ice!?"

Reacting quickly, Kakashi tried to get onto Tenzo's side of the cracked earth, but a massive wall of solid ice exploded from beneath the ground, separating them and then fanning out to form into a massive dome with a flat divider down its center. As the encapsulations closed around Kakashi and Tenzo, keeping them away from one another, they were each joined by one of the hidden-faced enemies.

Kakashi called out to Tenzo, but received no answer. The ice was thick and soundproof, creating a major chill in the air as his voice echoed back on itself. Immediately, Kakashi took a breath and put his fingers together in front of his mask, facilitating the formation of a massive fireball, robbing the confined dome of its oxygen by igniting it all and seeking to melt the wall from within. The glowing ball of raging inferno expanded to fill most of the 'room.' The ice made up total coverage—none of the orange blaze found any cracks to slip through, and the heat of the flame wasn't strong enough to weaken the ice. The dome was being steadily maintained by the enemy who had created it.

As the flame became vapor and the oxygen was largely drained from the room, Kakashi looked to his cellmate. The opponent that faced Kakashi was the one with the yellow mask; importantly, he was also the one with a bet to win. "Look at my luck," the man spoke as he moved nearer to his partner in confinement. "To think that I would come out on the same side as you. I may yet win this wager after all...so, do me a favor, Kakashi; scream as loudly as you can when your bones shatter..."

Meanwhile, on Tenzo's side of the dual-ended dome, he looked to the blue masked individual who shared his segment. There was a thick wall between himself and Kakashi, but coming from that side he heard nothing but silence. "If you mean to capture us, I think you might have made the cage too large," Tenzo said, slapping his hands together and forcing an array of wooden beams out from inside the dirt that supported his opponent. The planks formed together into a tight cage, closing in around the creator of the larger, colder prison and seeking to constrict him. As it got closer, the wooden cage's pace began to turn sluggish, even as Tenzo fed more of his chakra into its construction. Eventually, he lost control of the wood, and thick ice shards began to form along the organic surfaces. The cubic cage turned into an immobile sculpture of ice, and a hand from within its borders shattered the structure with a casual sweep, a body stepping out and dusting off his black robe.

"This is not a capture play, Kinoe," the iceman said with a slithering tone. "This is a chance to test ourselves—furthermore, an opportunity to earn Lord Mamban's trust and privileges. Whosoever manages to bring him the Sharingan of Kakashi Hatake is to become his second-in-command once we've overthrown the leadership of the Hidden Leaf..."

"Kakashi's Sharingan? Hmph, you must be disappointed to find yourself stuck with _me_, then," Tenzo speculated.

"It hardly matters where I begin—this will end with both of you dead at my feet. Although my colleague is strong, he underestimates Kakashi Hatake's power. I don't expect him to succeed in his mission."

Tenzo had a serious look on his face, contemplating the earlier mention of his old codename with subdued bitterness. "You called me Kinoe...Does that mean that Mamban is working for Danzo? Is this all a scheme of Root?"

"We _do_ all hail from Danzo's corner of the Leaf...indeed, all of us have answered his orders for an insufferably long time. But finally, we have reached our day of freedom. Just like you, Kinoe, we'll never take orders from Danzo Shimura again."

"Yet you're still going to follow orders...the only difference is that they will come from Mamban, isn't that it?" Tenzo bought time, thinking through his strategy. It was obvious enough that the enemy's power was ice-based, but it was almost certainly more complex than that.

"If you intend to survive this, then he shall be referred to as _Lord Mamban_, or not referred to at all," the reply came frigidly, and gloved hand seals were formed. Tenzo braced himself, flexing his brow and concentrating. Against Kaine, he had only used a small portion of his chakra, but he had an ominous feeling that he would need to put forth quite a bit more effort to make any headway against the icy anomaly standing before him.

* * *

Rika was sitting in a chair in the main room of the inn, kicking her feet back and forth as she hummed to herself. To her, it was beginning to feel like a pretty long time had passed since Akemi left. She started to wonder if her sensei might have decided to sneak away and leave her behind, and with that moment of uncertainty in her mind, she abruptly stood up and slipped her shoes on, hurrying toward the door only to be stopped by the stern, cross-armed figure of her robust father moving in to fill up the frame.

"Going someplace, young lady?" Rika's father asked her, tapping a chubby finger against his dense arm hair.

"Just...takin' a walk, daddy," she lied, taking just a second too long to offer a smile. She felt like she was pretty thoroughly busted.

"When your sister said it, I believed her...but the last time _you_ told me you were just taking a walk, I didn't see you for well over a month."

"Can you please not do this right now? I _need_ to go out there." Rika answered, trying not to show her concern. She didn't want to be abandoned. Akemi was definitely strong enough to take care of herself in that vast outside world, but Rika knew that _she_ wasn't ready for it yet—not alone.

Her father's expression turned desperate. "Please...please don't go out there," he said, quite abruptly looking sweaty and panicked, his eyes starting to glaze over.

"You can't stop me, daddy; I'm going, and I don't want you to try to keep me here. Don't worry, I'll be back in a few—" Suddenly, her father's fist was aimed for her nose. Her instincts kicked in from her training with Akemi, and she ducked the blow, grasping the coming arm and turning herself around to flip the heavy weight of her dad over her shoulder and into a brutal slam against his back on the floor of the inn. Once she had done it, she blinked, looking at her own hands. Maybe she was more ready than she thought—but that was hardly the first thing to hit her mind. "Daddy! What the hell was _that!?_ Did you just try to _hit me?_" Rika reached down to seize her father's collar in her left hand, looking him in the eyes and pulling her right arm back, readying a strike of her own just in case her parent needed some more sense knocked into him.

While Rika expected him to hesitate, to shake himself out of some daze, it only seemed to worsen. Huge hands grabbed their daughter's waist on both sides, and although it might have appeared dangerous to an outsider looking in, the truth of the matter was that Rika had become far too strong for an untrained hand to grasp. She pulled her fragile-looking hands down to grab her father by the wrists, yanking them off of her and hearing a crack of bone. She might have overdone it, but in the heat of the moment, she didn't care. She stood up, frantically running toward the exit of the building. It struck her that she hadn't heard her father express any pain, despite broken fingers.

When she emerged from the inn, her face turned pale white. What seemed like the entire population of Monolith Point was standing around the titular rock, staring at Rika on sleepy feet with dead eyes. Atop the stone, there was a man using it like a perch—a man whom Rika quickly recognized, but one whom she _sincerely_ wished that she hadn't. The oversized red mask seemed to stare at her with more intensity than a human gaze could ever have given.

"Well, well, well..." Mamban's sultry voice murmured from high above, hissing deliberately. "Look who it is, all by her_sss_elf, on such a _lovely morning_..."

* * *

**Next update coming soon.**


	25. Puppeteers

**Thank you to everybody who has read, and to everybody who has followed, favorited, or reviewed. I appreciate all of it! Now, let's get back into it. Enjoy!**

* * *

_**...Go!**_

Akemi sprung out from her hiding place, knowing exactly where Kaine stood by seeing him through the corner of her eye. Predictability—that was one of his weaknesses, although it was difficult to exploit for anybody who hadn't spent a lot of time fighting at his side. He was already sucking air into his lungs to have something to breathe out, gathering up the power for another bolt of lightning from his mouth. It was scary how much chakra he had at his disposal, Akemi often thought. He was the last man standing on many occasions, including the night before. How he had managed to replenish his stores so completely overnight was a total mystery to his partner. She still hadn't fully recovered, even after her night on the perfect mattress.

Akemi launched herself like a rocket, using an earthen platform as a stepping point to fire toward her destination. It would be close, but she was hopeful that she was going to make it. She felt the buzzing in the air, the follicles on her arms beginning to stand; the bolt would come soon. Akemi gave herself a split second to observe Kaine; he was looking right at her with the same rage as before. He saw only the person who had tried to kill Makoto—he knew not, and _cared not_, about why or how it had come to be. He only knew that he wanted to punish her, and that she was directly in his path. The crack of lightning echoed through the woods, and the birds who were falling behind on their migration schedule were abruptly scared from their perches. The second bolt was much larger, much stronger than the first—to take a direct hit could likely mean instant death.

Time stopped in Akemi's mind. She allowed her body to fire on autopilot, filling out the details of her sketched plan. She couldn't rely on her thoughts to control her actions—there wasn't enough time for that. Instead, her unrestrained muscles moved near-instantly to grip the hilt of her knife, plucking its bloody blade from the dirt. With the weapon in hand, she twisted at the hip and jutted the shining edge in the direction of the coming bolt. The white flash of energy took a curved path, splintering into a dozen directions with smaller filaments, flooding the forest with light, sound, and heat.

The lightning struck the tip of Akemi's dagger, catching onto it as a focal point. With the first contact made, she turned herself again, using her left hand as leverage to fling herself into a mid-air circle, whipping the precariously flowing bolt around by the tip of her dagger. By the end of her maneuver, the bolt traced a flashing path in a curved half-circle around her lower body. With the weapon still in her grip, she allowed the energy to flow back out, completing its journey, its raw power being sent back toward its origins. Akemi had temporarily completed the circuit, and Kaine's mouth was wide open.

There was no time for him to react, and before the flash of light had even come to an end, he was on the ground with hot steam coming from his throat. His hands were around his own neck, choking on his own power as it channeled down his esophagus. His saliva had evaporated and his tongue was singed, though the muscle wasn't completely destroyed. His legs kicked around for a moment or two, but then he gathered himself, springing up to a standing position and seeming ready for another round despite the powerful aroma of burnt flesh filling his nostrils. His own flesh, as it happened.

Akemi's dagger had been charged with Kaine's chakra while it was being forged. He had given it to her as a way of defending against lightning weapons, and yet it also gave her a distinct advantage in a battle with him—because it was laced with his unique chakra, she could use its blade to siphon his attacks and redirect them. She refused to use such a trick in their combat test, but_ that_ was only a test—in a situation of life and death, the rules were gone. Akemi caught herself on her feet, dust still fluttering around her boots by the time her enraged comrade stood back up and caught his breath. She had only bought a few seconds, but she hoped that it was enough.

Makoto was still on the ground from Kaine's initial shove, barely seeming to register the moment. Her body was twitching lightly, trying to move but finding it difficult. She was situated behind Akemi, who was still paying close attention to Kaine; Aki's arms were out and her knife was held firm in both hands, its rubber hilt quite the lifesaver in addition to its lightning infusion. It was the perfect weapon to use against her brother's electrical strikes; her earth nature formed a solid defense against his water, as well.

His only advantage was his mastery of hand to hand techniques, which he seemed intent on using. He rushed forward, and Akemi quickly tucked her knife away to make room for hand signs. She shouted, trying to snap him back to himself: "She was trying to kill me, Hamasaki! _Stop_!" She wasn't fast enough. Kaine caught her by the wrist, yanking her hand apart from the other and interrupting her concentration. He drew her into a solid punch across the jaw, which sent her face violently sideways, slumping at the end of her spine. Her head started swimming and her thoughts struggled to form. Still reeling, she took another set of hard knuckles straight to her nose. It would've broken a person of lesser resilience, but Akemi concentrated her chakra beneath the skin to soften the blow...though only somewhat. The haphazard cushion of defense spared her from a broken jaw and displaced nose, but taking much more abuse would spell the end of her. Blood was already streaking down the corner of her mouth, plus it was dribbling from one of her nostrils. Her vision was blurred by the impacts, filled with the dark images of a ferocious fist.

He didn't stop. Akemi tried reaching for her knife, trying desperately to kick at Kaine's torso, but his knees were in the way, blocking her efforts reflexively as he pulled her against his punches for the strongest impact. She thought for a short moment that she was going to die, beaten to death by the man who saved her from the Truth Village and its lies. She tried to move her head away from his blows, but he found her anyway. A final punch knocked her so hard that she was propelled from his grip and landed flat onto her back, kicking up a flurry of leaves that framed her shuddering body like a portrait. She coughed, free to breathe, free to think, but not so free to move. She knew she _needed_ to move, but her nerves were misfiring from the pain. She scrambled to crawl away, finally managing to get onto her knees and hands, gripping hard, dry dirt with her finger nails and dragging herself forward. She _had_ to gain some distance, but she didn't get far.

Kaine was on top of her in a moment, his foot stomping onto her hand and holding her still. The weight of his knee fell onto her back, and she felt his hands framing her face, pulling on her hair as his muscles shuddered against her jaw and neck. Akemi was gasping for breath, feebly clawing at the iron grip on her face. If he jerked his hands just a little bit to the left, a little bit to the right, he would snap her neck. She was afraid, but her thoughts weren't on her own life. Rather, she thought of the Truth Village—of its people. The people she had abandoned. Even if she wasn't _happy _there, she had at least felt _safe_. How ironic that she would die in a place that was surrounded by peaceful air and chirping birds. A babbling brook, and warm hearths. Home-made stew, and Rika Mori's loving family.

"Don't...do it, Hamasaki," Akemi said, breathless. Her voice was tiny beneath the pressure of Kaine Hamasaki's brutal strength, her windpipe all but crushed by his dense arm. "You'll regret it tomorr—" she was cut off by a tighter grip.

"Bad day," Kaine whispered, his dry, lightning-burnt lips touching to Akemi's ear as he breathed down her neck. Just as he was about to end the woman's life, she was saved by something that forced a sudden cry of agony from the same lips that had spoken to seal her fate. Kaine's arms abruptly lost their hold on her neck, and she was stricken with powerful adrenaline, taking advantage of her loosened imprisonment to break free of Kaine's grip and stand herself upright, shaking her head from side to side and wiping the blood from the lower half of her face. Some of that blood was Kaine's, having still been flowing from the open wound through his palm.

Kaine wasn't very happy. A knife was jammed into his shoulder from behind, forcing his grip to loosen and his mind to snap back into the agony of reality. "_**Graaah!**_" he screamed, unable to find the words to express his anger until he began to turn his head and face his attacker. "Rika, you _dumb bitch_, now you get to...die...too...?" he had begun with a loud vitriol, but when he saw the face of the woman holding the hilt of the now-bloody kitchen knife, he lost his will to speak. "M-Makoto...?" he questioned, not at all believing what his eyes were showing him.

"_Idiot! _She's being _controlled!_" Akemi scolded out loudly, and although she was still half-dazed from the beating, she stomped the ground to trigger a small eruption of earth around Kaine's body. The sudden tremor knocked Makoto back and away, the young girl losing her hold on the knife and then falling onto her rounded backside. Following up on the knockdown, Akemi formed a few more seals and produced shackles of stone to hold the mindless girl's arms and legs firmly to the ground. Makoto's body struggled against them, but her face and eyes remained blank.

Kaine was still coming to grips with the situation, bringing his hand up to grab the knife's hilt and attempt to yank it out. He couldn't reach it with enough leverage, and the struggle looked somewhat pathetic. Akemi rolled her eyes, trying to resist the urge to hold a grudge, moving over to grab the knife and dislodge it from between his shoulder and arm bones. There was a spurt of blood to come along with it, and Kaine's vest was beginning to turn purple from the redness of his blood mixing with the deep blue dye. He swallowed hard, just then realizing how difficult it was to breathe through his scorched throat. He had eaten one of his own lightning bolts, quite literally. When he spoke, he did so with a hushed shamefulness. "I could've killed you, Akemi..." he said, cringing at the thought. He couldn't look at her, instead staring at Makoto's silent struggle to escape her bonds.

Akemi allowed herself to look, as well. It was disturbing to see the sweet, bubbly girl with such murderous intent, but a more pressing matter was on her mind. "Yeah, well...you can apologize later. Right now, I need to find Rika; if Makoto's acting like this, it's a safe bet that she's not the only one." Even as she spoke, Akemi was springing to action, her legs pumping with urgency to carry herself back to Monolith Point. It wasn't far away; she could see it through the trees. Her path was obstructed, though, by a small figure in a black robe and hood, one wearing a snake-like mask that had the color of deep summer grass.

The boldness of the figure's chest suggested femininity, and the voice confirmed it. "What's your hurry, doll?" the figure asked, her head tilting to crack her neck sickeningly. "You and I haven't even been introduced," she continued, holding out a hand that was sleeved by a black leather glove. "Call me Cassy; I'm Mamban's _favorite~_" she murmured with a suggestive purr in her voice.

Akemi looked to the offered hand, narrowing her eyes. "Frankly, lady, I don't _care!_" she exclaimed quickly, moving to side-step the shorter woman. Mid-step, she tripped on what felt like thin air, tumbling to the ground. Ordinarily, she could have caught her fall, but Kaine's blows were still rattling her brain with aftershocks, slowing her reflexes. She was going to have to pay him back for that one. She tried to get up, but when she used her hand to lift herself, she felt her arm thrown aside, forcing her face into the dirt once more by its own weight.

"Awww, don't be like that," Cassy mocked with prolonged enunciation, kneeling down and running the back of her gloved hand across Akemi's cheek. "Stick around...we're gonna get to know each other _real_ well," she whispered beneath her mask, giggling like a madwoman. Her head was tilting left and right, the mask hiding her eyes and everything else about her face. Akemi moved her head and tried to bite the fingers off the imposing woman's hand, but the gloved digits were pulled back and turned into a wagging, chastising finger. "No, no; _no biting_...not unless I ask you to," she sighed airily, flicking her right hand and twisting a pair of outstretched fingers. Kaine was charging in, but he ate dirt just as Akemi did. He scrambled to stand up, but he couldn't. Something was holding him down.

"What the hell is this?" Kaine mumbled to himself, biting down on delicious dead leaves as he tried to speak louder. He struggled, and he could feel himself rubbing against _something_, but he couldn't see it when he turned his eyes down. Akemi seemed to be constricted by some invisible force as well.

Cassy sauntered over to Kaine, kneeling in front of him and bringing her hand up to stroke her smooth chin beneath the rim of her mask. "Mm, maybe I'll like _you_ a bit better," she huskily mused. The woman was certainly an amorous one. "Big, strong, and stupid; a good guard dog, yeah?" Cassy's mask was tilted, her head leaned down to emphasize the narrow pinholes that allowed her to see through her mask. "Bark for me, doggy." She prodded him verbally, her eyes lingering mere inches from his mouth.

"Sure," Kaine said, smirking arrogantly. "I'll bark for you..." He couldn't move his hands together for seals, but he had something else. He opened his mouth, summoning up some of the lingering power left behind from his swallowed bolt; the chakra had been reintegrated to his system, still kneaded and ready to fire—it was actually quite convenient that Akemi had turned his attack back onto him, leaving it ready to launch again. "_Woof!_" he exploded, and behind the word came the spark of electricity that was cast directly toward Cassy's concealing faceplate.

* * *

The air was cold, but Tenzo wasn't flinching under the icy dome. Its shape was like the barrier that surrounded the Truth Village; it went deep underground and completed a sphere. He was sure that Kakashi had already thought of the same, and realized that it would be pointless to try to tunnel out. Tenzo was faced by the blue-masked obstacle that maintained the prison. "So, if I take you down, this whole chamber will crash to the ground alongside you, right?" Tenzo asked.

"You'll never know," the robed male responded, playing up his confidence.

Clapping his hands together, Tenzo pulled out a long, smooth rod. It continued to come, sliding easily free of his flesh as it was weaved out of multiple layers of wood. As the pole reached a suitable length, Tenzo gave it one more tug, a firm completion that finished its creation. It was topped with a thick, sharp poleaxe head. A fully wooden weapon with thrice-woven thickness, sturdy and dependable. He tapped its hilt onto the dirt at his feet, pondering. "I've already figured out the basics," he said, closing his eyes and standing confidently. "As things get close to you, they begin to freeze." Holding out his fresh weapon, he smirked. "I just have to avoid getting too close."

The enemy said nothing, but he did begin weaving signs. Tenzo took that to mean that he was on the right track, but being on the right track didn't necessarily mean he was already close to victory. Figuring out the conditions of an opponent's technique was only the first stage, after all—overcoming it was the next. On top of that, there were sure to be a few extra tricks up the iceman's oversized sleeves. From the opponent's hands came a weapon of his own, forged of ice and crystal clear. The blackness of his robe could be seen through the sharpened blade, distorted by the frigid medium.

"If that's how you like it, Kinoe," the male began, twirling the icy implement around in his palm. "We'll play by your rules until the end. I am Seshu of the Frosted River, and I have a very particular plan for you." Seshu brandished his transparent weapon, then leaped into the air, his robe fluttering in the thin pressure of the cold chamber. He brought his bladed staff down in an overhead swing, which Tenzo blocked with the broad central shaft of his own tool. Both combatants gave a grunt of effort, but neither could immediately overcome the force of the other. Seshu was ultimately pushed back by Tenzo's strong arms once his falling momentum came to a stop, landing on his feet and skidding backward. "I'll hurt you until your face twists in a most exquisite manner, and then I'll freeze it that way...it shall be a beautiful testament to your final moments. Wouldn't you like that?"

Tenzo checked the handle of his new weapon, and as he expected there was a thick sheet of ice folding over the central piece that had come into contact with Seshu's blade. The wood held strong, but if it froze completely through it would likely shatter just as his cage had done. "As tempting as the offer might be, I don't intend to have my final moments just yet. Definitely not in a place like this, with a guy like you," Tenzo poised himself, deciding to go on the offensive. He led with the sharpened point of his spear, offering up a few quick jabs, which Seshu dodged every one of. He was nimble on his feet, and Tenzo could feel the temperature in the sealed room steadily dropping. The cold was making the wood user's muscles less responsive. He had to keep moving, else his body would seize up at a bad time.

Seshu seemed to be exploiting that need for motion, reserving his own movements to save energy while allowing Tenzo to expend all of his effort by trying to land a hit. The man in the mask was unaffected by the conditions, his blood like ice and his skin already frozen on the surface. It was his natural state; he had never appreciated warmth. "Keep it up, Kinoe," Seshu taunted, feeling as if he was in control of the fight. "You might eventually pierce my sleeve if you try your hardest!"

Tenzo aimed to sweep Seshu's feet out from beneath him, but the effort was countered by a hop. The light-footed snow dancer tapped the blade of Tenzo's swiping instrument with the back of his heel, causing some of the surface to freeze over by the time it finished its path. Tenzo scowled at the development, unable to shake the growing layer of ice away from the blade. It eventually stopped building, but not before the cutting edge was glazed over. He broke the weapon over his knee, turning it into two separate rods of about arm's length, wielding one in each hand and supplementing them with extra layers produced from his wrists.

"Not bad," Seshu commented, watching the self-repairing wood go to work. "Not bad at all," he repeated, twirling his icicle above his head idly. "How long can you last in here, I wonder?" he pondered, striking the dirt at his feet with the tip of his blade, drawing it across the ground in a slow arc around his feet. Ice began to coat the floor, slick and nigh-unbreakable. "I can go for a long time..."

Tenzo knew that he had to finish the fight quickly, but he was still having trouble in figuring out exactly how he was going to do that. "I'm not easy to kill," Tenzo warned, though he was questioning his own bluster. With both rods grasped firmly in his hands, he charged toward Seshu. At the back of his mind, he wondered how Kakashi was faring with his opponent.

* * *

Kakashi was wondering the same about Tenzo, but his own fight had yet to begin. His yellow-masked adversary was a long-winded, self-assured, and totally clueless blowhard. The truth of the matter was that the leader of Team 7 was tuning out all the flaunting and pompousness. He heard a few words, here and there, but they were sparse. Things like "doom," "rightful place," and "recognition." From the scattered blueprint of mix and match terminology, Kakashi could figure that the man felt unappreciated by his own team and sought a way of proving himself.

"...and that's why your Sharingan is coming with me, Kakashi Hatake. I'll reach into your filthy skull and rip it out with my own fingers! As you lie there, beaten, bloody, broken, and begging for mercy, I'll show you the dead gaze of your own eye! You'll understand in that moment that you were beaten by..." He was still going. He had probably said his name a few times, but Kakashi wasn't listening to it. The experienced shinobi knew better than to rush into a battle, but when he made the choice to allow his opponent to make the first move, he hadn't expected quite so much flourish. He focused on watching the movements, feeling the shifts in temperature. It could have all been an act; a way of getting an enemy's guard down for a surprise attack...yet, if that were the case, his ideal moments had come and gone a few times over.

Kakashi spoke up, his speech coming out with lazy boredom. "Can we hurry this along? I have to go help my friend Tenzo on the other side of this wall."

The man in the yellow had been yammering on about peace and love, or he might as well have been—no matter what subject he had stumbled onto, Kakashi's words cut him like a knife. "Hurry it—you bastard, have you been listening to a word I've said? I intend to _savor_ this chance to make you cry. Speaking of which, I've always wondered...does a Sharingan cry red tears?" Surprisingly, that seemed to be the end of it. He scampered toward Kakashi with his fist reeled back.

Admittedly, when the man decided to take action, he was rather fast. He wasn't fast enough to truly surprise Kakashi, but he was quicker than expected. Once he was close, his fist was flung forward, aimed for Kakashi's midsection. He was sidestepped, and where he was going to land the blow, instead the air exploded into a fiery burst of smoke and concussive force. That was the surprise—the sound of it echoed within the cramped dome, soot filling the area and clouding up both fighters' vision.

_So that's this one's ability,_ Kakashi thought. Another punch was thrown to hit the air, and another heavy blast of explosives filled the space in front of the gloved fist. _Can't block it, have to keep avoiding him,_ Kakashi told himself. His opponent was still talking, taunting, chiding, peacocking, generally making an annoyance of himself. Even if Kakashi had wanted to listen, now, the explosions were making it difficult to hear. His ears had a dull ring after each close call, and although Kakashi felt like he was in control of the battle, his concentration was still required in order to keep his head. He had his Sharingan out and in use, but the buildup of ash in the air was making it harder to utilize its ability to anticipate the enemy's movements.

_Just like Susumu,_ Kakashi told himself, narrowly avoiding more and more jabs and hooks. Kicks were involved, too, but they lacked the explosive edge. Kakashi could tell that his opponent was growing to be frustrated by his inability to inflict damage. The worst he had given so far was a case of temporarily disrupted hearing. _All I have to do is get him by the wrists, and he's useless._

With the next strike, Kakashi put his observations into decisive action. As the next punch was thrown, it was ducked beneath, and the Sharingan legend reached up to seize the wrist behind the explosive burst. As he was caught, the enemy paused in surprise, then threw a second punch, and a second massive blast filled the chamber at its apex. The variance in air pressure was a hindrance, but Kakashi had gotten used to it after the past dozen attempts. His vest was peppered with little bits of shrapnel; rocks, twigs and fragments of the surrounding ice prison were all flecking his clothing and hair. At the end of the confrontation, Kakashi had the yellow-masked, practically nameless villain in his grasp and both arms were held at bay. With a swift knee to the face, Kakashi shattered the mask in a single strike, the serpent falling into shambles and revealing an unremarkable, dazed face beneath.

One of Mamban's hand-picked 'royal guard' had been utterly humiliated, and his face was wearing naked shame. The splintering of his mask had also broken his nose, and he muttered a terrified few words that Kakashi most certainly heard: "Don't kill me, I'll tell you anything..."

Kakashi nodded. "That's right...you absolutely will." He opened his left eye nice and wide, the dusty air clearing enough so that the glowing red Sharingan made perfect contact with the unmasked gaze of the explosive user. Kakashi triggered a genjutsu, seeking to milk the man for all the knowledge he was worth—as little as that might have truly been.

* * *

Rika was encumbered just like her fellows, though her opponents at the time didn't wear masks or state their motives. Mamban lurked high above, but he kept himself in the background, slouched over the pointed peak of the central monolith in town. On the ground, the road paved but dirty, Rika was trying to avoid the mass of her former townsfolk as they tried to dog-pile on top of her and suppress her. She was nimble for her experience level, able to avoid the grasp of a half-dozen or more zombified villagers at the same time.

Akemi had taught her well, and she could have killed several of them, but she had made the decision not to do it—she didn't know for sure if the condition could be reversed, but she knew that she didn't want to give Mamban the satisfaction of watching her do it. He was clapping like a child upon his stolen throne, wriggling from the hips to the ankles as if he could barely contain himself. "Oh, you've gotten so much better, little trophy. Kill a few friends; see what it's like to be a proper shinobi," he said down to her. Rika glared at him, then she hopped up from another sea of outstretched hands, jumping from one pair of shoulders to the next as she made her way to a roof, hoping to keep herself out of the crowd's reach. They seemed sluggish and stupid, even though her father had been speaking in fluent sentences the moment before he threw the punch. Had he been aware of his fate? Why didn't he warn her?

Situated atop the inn, by pure coincidence, she could see that the swarm of villagers had the presence of mind to go for the ladder. Rika countered that notion by kicking the ladder down, assuming that they wouldn't know to replace its position. She was correct in that, and even though Mamban's 'army' was entirely nullified by a few feet of height, the ring leader didn't seem all that disturbed. He did stand up, though, formerly seated on his rump with his legs flinging about. When he stood, he became still of body. He stared to Rika from across the gap, overlooking waves of soldiers that had once been proud members of Monolith Point's unique ecosystem.

"If you kill them, my dear little lady, I will allow you to run free," Mamban said. Although he spoke softly and the rustling of motion was noisy from below, his voice reached Rika's ears with perfect clarity. "If not, you can be as they are. A life of blissful ignorance as one of my puppets is vastly preferable to one of torment by this world's flaws," Mamban made a sweeping gesture, fingers pointing outward. "It's all a sham. Sus—I mean, 'Minoru' and his truth are shams, the Leaf is a sham, the Land of Fire is a sham...this village is a sham. Your misguided sense of morality is a sham as well, little girl." Mamban took a quiet jump, leaving his perch on the monolith and landing a few feet from Rika with no significant exertion. "Kill them all...prove to me that you're strong enough for the world we live in."

His sudden closeness made the inexperienced ninja fall backward. She knew she wasn't ready for an opponent like him, but she knew she would eventually need to fight. She had seen what happened to the people who didn't fight back—at least Fiona and Mako had been given peace, despite the great pain they must have felt in the process. A life of mindless servitude was the worst possible fate she could imagine. "They're my friends and family, you monster," she said. While she tried to sound tough, she couldn't. She was visibly shaking, her sleeveless arms feeling cold in the surprisingly warm morning air. The sun was bright and shining, a stark contrast to the way she felt beneath Mamban's inhuman stare.

"They're already dead," Mamban informed, turning his head away from Rika and sighing regretfully. "The moment they lose control, there is no saving them..." He tsked, shaking his head and then shrugging his shoulders. "Either you grant them a merciful death, or I send them as the first wave against the Leaf Village. Wouldn't you rather be sure that their lives end quickly?"

Rika was swayed by the thought. She was given a choice—allow them to serve as mindless tools of war, or end the savagery herself with a quick, easy thrust of her kunai. She reached into a pouch on her hip, dressed modestly for combat despite never officially becoming a ninja. "Y-you're sure that there's no saving them? Not even if _you_ wanted them free?"

Mamban tsked again, also shaking his head again. "Nothing can be done. Their fates are sealed; your father, your mother, even your sister." He turned his body toward Rika, taking a step closer. "Ahh, little Makoto...She was easy to convince," he said, his voice becoming sinister to a degree that sent ice into Rika's very soul. Her teeth chattered as the lifeless mask leaned toward her. "_Oh, Mister Mamban,_" he said, mimicking Makoto's voice in a fairly insulting way. "_Don't touch me there..._" he finished his impression, shivering from the neck up as his mask vibrated to match.

Rika was inflamed. "You _sick, sadistic creep_...did you _rap_—" She was cut off by a quick finger against her lips, muffled despite trying to speak. The leather of his glove was rough and adhesive, and the firm touch of his digit kept her mouth totally subdued.

"No, my dear, no. Do you think I'm a savage?" Mamban asked, rather knowingly. "I merely persuaded her," he continued, and while his finger kept Rika's mouth shut, she was crushed under the weight of fear. She had seen what happened to the villagers who tried to run away from him; she had heard the screams of two of her friends as they were caught in the crossfire of his frightening power. His second hand reached around Rika's hip, and for a moment she feared the worst. Instead, she felt a pair of fingers press to the middle of her spine. "A tap to the back," he said, rubbing a small circle against the brown fabric of the sleeveless shirt that was once a dress. "She never felt a thing, I assure you."

"You won't get away with it," Rika said through an uncertain breath. Mamban was practically hugging her with both arms. She spoke against his finger, forcing her mouth to open despite his touch. She tasted the soot and acidity on its surface, but she supposed that the flavor was the aftermath of something, and not the beginning. She didn't _feel_ like she was melting. "Akemi is going to kill you for what you're doing to me..."

Mamban scoffed, releasing Rika unceremoniously and stepping back from her to turn around and admire the walking husks at his feet. "To threaten a monster, you need another monster...Akemi Yamaguchi is no monster. I watched her dive into the fray to spare your wretched little life," he said, wistfully rotating his hands, grasping at nothingness as he spoke. He had the urge again, his feet shuffling about, his body swaying side to side, and eventually his entire self became absorbed into the motion of dancing. It was a bizarre spectacle up close, and Rika wondered at just how mad the man really was. He continued speaking, his voice undulating with the uneven pace of his steps. "Threaten me with Minoru; perhaps with Kakashi Hatake. Do not threaten me with a woman who flees from the faintest whisper of my name..."

A whistle of wind and the light thunk of a foot landing on the inn's roof sounded behind Rika. "Who's fleeing?" the female voice asked, out of breath but stone solid. Akemi had arrived, and her knife was already drawn. There was hate on her face and rage in her bones. She wanted very badly to kill the man standing in front of her, but she wasn't oblivious to the state of the town. Were it just her, she would have gone entirely ballistic, even carved through every one of those people if she had to—but with Rika around, she had to consider the aftermath. Could she have ever lived with herself if she killed Rika's friends and family? She decided that she _could_—but not if Rika _saw_ it happen.

Mamban didn't seem surprised by her arrival, but he also didn't seem amused. His voice found a sudden seriousness, the games all gone and his dance cut short. "Akemi, isn't it?...you've come after all. Tell me, then...what fate has befallen my cherished Cassy?" The illusion of a ditzy, dainty screwball was instantly shattered. Mamban was as sober as could be, his voice smooth but full of trepidation as he asked. Perhaps the girl in the green mask had been truthful about being his 'favorite'.

Akemi sneered, looking over her shoulder for the briefest of moments. "I'd love to tell you that I ripped the head off her shoulders," she began, gripping the hilt of her knife more tightly. "Hamasaki's with her now, though; he'll probably do it _for_ me."

* * *

The blast of lightning had caught Cassy by surprise, but in some way, some how, she managed to split the bolt straight down the middle and send its energy forking into the wilderness to catch flame to a pair of unfortunate trees. She avoided damage, but the momentary confusion seemed to briefly lift the hold on Akemi and Kaine's bodies, and they both got onto their feet with renewed focus. Kaine looked to Akemi, then over past her shoulder toward Monolith Point. "I'll handle this one. Go get Rika, then find Kakashi and Tenzo! Get moving, Akemi!" Kaine was back in a combat stance, and Cassy had her focus on him. She wasn't expecting him to cast a jutsu with no seals, and it seemed that she was unaware of the special circumstances that made it possible.

Akemi didn't waste time, and Kaine saw Cassy trying to make up for her lack of attention, twiddling her fingers in that general direction. He had seen her doing that before, as well, and he drew a quick conclusion. "Now I get it," he said aloud, charging his arm with lightning and sweeping it through the air between Cassy and Akemi. He didn't know for sure at the time, but the action seemed to keep Akemi on her feet and sent a stunned surprise through Cassy as she realized that her attempt had failed. Kaine grinned, his hand and shoulder bloody but his grin looking like bloody _murder_. "You won't catch me like that again," he started, his blue eyes focused on Cassy's leather-bound fingertips. "Did you think I'd never seen a puppeteer before?"

"I guarantee that you've never seen one like _me,_" Cassy replied without missing a beat. She started to wriggle her fingers again, spinning her wrists in slow circles. Although her strings were invisible, Kaine could tell their path by watching her fingers. He hadn't seen how she split his lightning blast—he could assume that she would do it again if he tried it. He allowed her to have the next move. As her hands continued to rotate, the woman in the green mask began to giggle maniacally.

The world surrounding Kaine began to split into tiny pieces.

* * *

**That's all for now. Leave a review if you want to, and as always, expect the next update soon! Thank you for reading!**


	26. Cruelty

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Tenzo's assault was going rather poorly, a wooden rod in each hand that was light but fast. Seshu was still moving at full speed despite the icy clime, and Tenzo was continuously feeling himself slowing down. His only stroke of luck came in the form of his enemy's inaction. The iceman focused on dodging, rather than striking back. He was playing a game of attrition, and he was clearly winning. Tenzo's breaths were getting heavier, massive clouds of condensation coming out of his mouth then quickly vanishing into tiny ice crystals. Each time he inhaled, he could feel his temperature decreasing overall, and although his flesh hadn't yet begun to freeze over, he had to figure that it was only a matter of time before it did.

Tenzo disengaged, striking toward Seshu's face but being easily deflected by an icy crystal as he jumped away to land on both feet. He was wobbly, but he wasn't _that_ tired yet—the ground was beginning to turn into ice as well, beneath him. The clock was running out, and Tenzo tried his wood again. With his palms clapped together and his fingers interlaced, he broke ground in front of himself, shattering the smooth layer of ice and sending fragments into the air. Seshu paused in his pursuit, raising both arms to protect his masked face as heavy lumps of wood were fired like arrows toward him. Just like before, the wood froze mid-air, becoming ice and slapping into Seshu's clothing almost harmlessly. It wasn't just the temperature that lowered as things got closer to him; the speed changed drastically as well.

_I can't hit him hard enough like this, _Tenzo considered, unclasping his hands and speaking up, hoping that his enemy was chatty enough to give an opportunity to slow his breathing down. The faster he breathed, the more quickly the ice would cake in his lungs and draw the fight closer to its end. The answer was calmness. "It's an impressive technique," Tenzo said through ragged huffs, setting both hands on his knees as he doubled over. "How can you be so comfortable in such a cold environment?"

Seshu stopped, moving to stand himself up and fold his arms along his waist. "I know what you're doing, Kinoe; trying to stall, trying to catch your fleeting breath." One of his hands reached up to pull down the hood behind his mask, letting flashy white hair flow outward as if it were being blown by the wind. It fell past his shoulders in stringy beams, bound together by clumps of ice. "It's no use. Your wood cannot strike me, and your speed is ever-decreasing. The more you wait, the stronger I get..." Seshu took his mask down, lacing his fingers between the eye sockets and tossing the deep blue visage away to clatter against frozen dirt. His face was half-covered by black streaks, and the other half was white with accents of blue. He looked half-frozen, though his face was expressive on both sides.

His eyes were wide and blank, purely snow-white from center to edge. The pattern of darkness that crossed his face was similar to the curse mark that Minoru was 'blessed' with, and Tenzo quickly assumed that it was helping him to survive in his own conditions. "I see," Tenzo murmured, standing back up after taking a moment to relax himself. He was still frigidly cold, and he could feel his own skin starting to lose color, even beneath his heavy vest. "Is your whole crew made up of leftovers from Orochimaru's playground?"

Seshu's lip twitched, and he scowled. "How rude of _you_, Kinoe, to call us leftovers. You're not so different from us, after all," he tossed his weapon from one gloved hand to the next, taking slow steps closer to Tenzo over the crackling ice. It was spreading out from his feet, becoming thick and slippery. "I reckon that Goda has already been defeated, over there—he was always rattling on about how he would 'ruin Kakashi without using his mark', and I believe he really _was _dumb enough to try it." Seshu chuckled, then shrugged, looking off toward the opaque divider that separate him from his own partner. "Who knows, though? In a desperate situation, it might turn _itself_ on..."

Tenzo was rejuvenated, though he was nowhere near a hundred percent. Sixty, at best—it would have to do. He changed his tactics, "So, Seshu of the Frosted River...anything that comes close to you turns instantly into ice, isn't that how it works?" He began weaving a procession of signs, paying careful attention to their formation. He couldn't afford to screw up, although the creakiness of his bones made mistakes a constant possibility.

Seshu raised a white brow, tilting his head and readying his transparent weaponry in both hands, situating the pole like a spear. "Something like that," he answered with boredom, the empty stare seemingly pointed toward Tenzo in anticipation of something wily. Rather than wait, Seshu struck first, throwing his weapon as a javelin, its razor-sharp point headed for Tenzo's heart. The games were over; it was time to finish it.

* * *

Kakashi had successfully wrapped the man—whose name was Goda—into his genjutsu, and during the process he learned a number of interesting but foreboding things about Mamban and his plots. The forced interrogation was cut short by a sudden burst of motion from his stunned victim, causing Kakashi to drop the man's collar and take a quick step backward. The genjutsu was forcefully broken by a sudden surge of sick-looking chakra. It spread out along the defeated man's body and hijacked his systems, forcing his legs to regain their firmness and stand up defiantly. Goda had previously been afraid of Kakashi, but the fear was gone; his unmasked, broken face was craggy and determined as it was gradually decorated by thick black lines.

"I should have known it wouldn't be that easy," Kakashi muttered to himself. The air had been getting colder in his half of the dome, but thanks to the other man's explosive punches, the temperature spiked often enough to keep up a relatively pleasant average. "I wanted to keep you as a prisoner, but that might not be an option anymore," Kakashi said, readying himself for another onslaught. The explosive punches he had become familiar with had been coming from the man _before_ his curse mark had been turned on. There was no guarantee that he would utilize the same tactics a second time—after all, Susumu's fighting style changed dramatically once his mark was activated. _Same rules apply, _Kakashi thought to himself. _Don't let him land a blow._

Goda said nothing, his face sternly held in a state of rage. His breathing was harsh and his body was trembling. His talkative nature had vanished, and he became a man of quick action—his form vanished from sight as his speed carried him forth, augmented considerably by the newly tapped energy of his curse. Kakashi was surprised, that time, and if not for his Sharingan's perception, he might have been struck. As it was, he had to bend himself down to the ground, legs leaning as far back as they could get. Again, Goda's fist exploded against the air, but the force was an entirely different magnitude. Even as Kakashi slipped down and through Goda's legs, he felt the concussive blast of the punch fill their confined space.

Kakashi formed seals in a flash; not even the curse's speed could keep up with his natural quickness. By the time Goda's next sprint closed toward Kakashi, there was a thick wall of earth to absorb the blow. The wall shattered, but as it did, Kakashi weaved through the debris to work his way close to the extended fist. His Sharingan allowed him to see the tiniest possible details in the air, and he could see the process of the explosive punch as it unfolded. The explosion was intense, but the threat wasn't the fire, as it had appeared at first—the damage was delivered by the wave of force that projected outward as a forward-opening cone. The sides were the safest place to be, but the air-tight nature of their arena meant that there was no _genuinely_ safe place.

For Goda, the risk was minimal—his curse mark was like an armor that shielded him from the pressure of his own blows. Kakashi could feel himself being pushed around by the rapidly whirling air, and also pushed against by the rising atmospheric _pressure_ that followed every trapped burst. Goda punched again, and Kakashi ducked and rolled, moving to the left. As the blast fired off, the concussion followed Kakashi rather than launched forward. The rules changed. _The curse mark must allow him to choose the explosive pattern,_ Kakashi thought, raising his arms up to protect his face from the crushing blow of air. He was picked up from his feet and thrown against the curved wall of ice at his back, feeling a tremor through each of his bones. He felt a tiny bone inside his wrist lose a fragment just slightly, and the pain shot through him with total suddenness. He quickly worked through it, and weaved more signs with the same speed as always. The pain was nothing to a man like Kakashi.

"One down," Goda said through the ringing of Kakashi's ears, breaking his unusual streak of silence. "Seshu was probably right; you aren't going to break down at just _nine_, are you?" He drew his arm back, aiming his fist into the air above his head and creating another huge burst of force. Kakashi pulled up another wall of thick earth to absorb some of the impact before it could reach him, but the waves still penetrated the barrier and hit the man behind it. His body held up for the most part, but he felt another small bone pinch against itself, little chunks breaking away within him.

_This is getting dangerous,_ Kakashi realized. _I need to end it quickly, but I can't afford to use Kamui yet...I haven't fully recovered from last night._ He held his hand in front of his Sharingan, anticipating the pain that he would feel if he did try to use his gifted technique and comparing it to the minor throb of his fractured carpal bones. There was no similarity—he could handle any measure of physical pain, but the agony of overusing his eye was on a level like spiritual torture. He couldn't afford to use his eye on such a low-level opponent. _If what I got from his mind was true, then Mamban is out there right now, too...I need to keep my options open for him. _

Another punch came with another air burst. Goda had given up trying to chase Kakashi down and took an approach that saw him hammering away at the air itself, which had a similar effect, though it was far less focused. Over time, Kakashi was tossed further against the wall—he could feel the ice cracking at his back, but it was still far too thick to pierce without multiple strikes. He had thought about using Goda's punches as a way of breaking out, but the other man must have already thought of that, because he refused to come within a certain distance of the solid barricade.

Kakashi paid close attention to every blow, studying Goda's movement patterns and how his technique varied from use to use. He always alternated from one fist to the next, always held his elbow back for a certain length of time, always firmly set his feet into the dirt, and always turned his head away from the blast to protect his face from the resulting fire-burst.

_The curse mark protects him from the shockwave, _Kakashi deduced as he nimbly danced around the most focused waves that came his way. The larger spread still struck him, but he was managing the impacts by turning his body in a way that allowed him to ride the waves, catching himself against the ice rather than limply smacking into it. Beyond the first two minor fractures, he was keeping his bones intact. _But he turns his head away after each punch, just for a moment. He also needs to keep his footing steady, or else the force of his own blast will knock him down._

Kakashi drew up a plan and put it into action, raising a wall of earth to soak up another shockwave. He was using a lot of chakra on defense, but if his gambit paid off, then he would only need two more techniques. Just before his wall was splattered, and during the split-second of his opponent's head being turned back, Kakashi triggered both of the necessary techniques at once. After the impact hit, Goda could clearly see Kakashi stand up from behind the wall of rubble. The battering was leaving Kakashi shaky on his feet, but his awareness and defiance hadn't been dampened in the slightest.

"How much more can that body of yours take, Kakashi?" Goda bragged, grinning wide on his square face. "Unlike you, I've got a limitless source of power." He patted himself on the right shoulder, where his curse mark lurked beneath the black cloth of his robe.

Kakashi sprung into action, rushing forward from behind his crumbling earth wall, clutching his fists to either side of himself and blitzing forth. Goda saw him coming, forming his arm into a fist and pulling it back. Kakashi was fast, but the blow would finish before he could do anything about it. Goda's arm locked itself into position, charging up his next burst, and as Kakashi's feet brought him inches closer, Goda's arm was launched forth like it was loaded by a spring, projecting a particularly huge blast off of his knuckles. Kakashi's eyes went wide with surprise, and Goda saw him take the full force of his long-range, percussive punch.

His arms were up to defend, but the copy ninja couldn't resist the massive impact. He was blown off of his feet. The sound of six bones snapping all at once echoed brutally within the chamber, but Kakashi still managed to land on both feet, primed for another attack. He was breathing heavily, blood soaking into his mask and the air struggling to leave his lungs with a ruined, desperate gurgle. His right arm was hanging uselessly, dislocated and shattered from shoulder to fingertips. Goda laughed uproariously. "Haha! Big bad Kakashi Hatake doesn't seem so tough anymore..." He pulled his incendiary arm back, and Kakashi seemed dead in the water; by all appearances he was barely able to stay conscious.

"One more!" Goda shouted, throwing his fist out with a hair-thin target path. His goal was to punch an explosive line straight through Kakashi's gut. As his fist came forth, he felt a rumble at his feet. It was too late for him to do anything, though; he was already braced against the impact of his own burst, his thick sandals dug into the earth. The explosion was already forming on the ends of his knuckles by the time the broken, bleeding Kakashi poofed into the smoke of a clone. Goda had been _had_.

With his fist firing with its own momentum, Goda couldn't stop it. In one second, it would explode whether he liked it or not. Kakashi's true body erupted from the earth below, and his hand caught Goda's propelling elbow, giving the large arm a redirecting shove as he came up from the ground. A half a second to go. Goda tried to resist Kakashi's push, but it was no use—he had already put too much momentum into the swing. It was arching back around, aimed for his own chest. A quarter-second.

"_**Damn you, Kaka—!" **_Goda was cut off by the explosion of his own technique: he punched himself in the ribs with the full force of a killing blow. Even his curse-mark-toughened skin couldn't stand up to the condensed focus of his final punch, and he felt his robe and flesh blow apart in front of the impact. His back expanded, and out came a massive burst of fire, air, boiling blood, and charred skin. He had impaled himself with his own fist—with just a little bit of help from Kakashi. His next attempt to speak came with a cough of his own blood, trickling down his mouth and over his neck. He tried to yank his fist out of his chest, but his broken ribs were tightly holding his hand in place.

"You turn away from the explosion to protect your eyes from the debris," Kakashi said, now standing plainly in front of his crippled opponent, dropping his headband to cover his Sharingan. "You really shouldn't take your attention away from your opponent during battle." Kakashi was tossing a kunai up and down with one hand, twirling the iron blade in the air before catching it atop one finger, balancing it idly. "Now, isn't this the part where you beg me for mercy, or was that a ruse?"

Goda tried to talk again, but more of his fluids came out. Eventually, after a fit of coughing, he gathered himself enough to murmur. "Ha...ha...didn't you hear a word I said before...? I wanted...to die," he gurgled, his eyes turning dull and losing their light. He wasn't going to survive for much longer. "I wanted to die before the mark took me..." he finished his thought, as ambiguous as it was.

"Took you?" Kakashi asked, dropping the balanced kunai down into his own tight grip.

"Like it took Mamban..." Goda said, a solitary tear streaming down his cheek, brought on by the memories. He had failed, but on top of that, he was going to die with the taint of Orochimaru coloring his flesh. "He wasn't always...insane like this," the dying man struggled, still trying to rip his own hand free of his chest. His other arm was free, but he could barely stand, let alone make another attempt to finish Kakashi. It was obvious who was superior between the two of them. "He was loyal to Lord Danzo, loyal to...his ideals of the Leaf..."

Kakashi lowered his weapon. He wasn't going to need it, after all. "What about you, Goda? Where are your loyalties right now?"

"I don't have loyalties anymore...I only wanted to fight _you_," he spat out, falling onto his knees. Kakashi allowed him to struggle for as long as he tried; those moments would contain the man's final words. "With the mark active, I feel like I lose myself...Seshu, Cassy, Mamban...they all embrace it, but I see it...for what it is..." He fell abruptly onto his face, then rolled onto his side, using his one good arm to prop himself up. "It controls us...makes us wild...forces us to do things we'd never do...and the more we use it, the worse it gets."

Kakashi nodded once, sheathing his kunai. "It's Orochimaru's handiwork; nothing he bestows is ever _really_ a gift. If you use it enough, you'll eventually crawl back to him...I admire your resolve for trying to resist it for so long, but...your battle is finally over."

"Thanks...Kakashi," he gasped. "It...it really does mean a lot to have my resolved _admired_ by a legend," Goda choked out sincerely, trying to smile but unable to work his facial muscles the right way.

Kakashi knelt down beside Goda, setting his hand on the man's tainted shoulder. "The least I can do for you now is seal the mark on your shoulder. You can feel freedom for a moment before you die."

Goda chuckled once, but shook his head. "It's too late for that, I'm...already..." he got quieter, and then ultimately drifted off. His eyes became colorless, and his body went fully limp as a final breath escaped. Kakashi hummed, taking his hand and running it down Goda's broken face to close his eyes and turn him onto his back. Another victim of Orochimaru's ambitions; looking at the limp, corrupted corpse, Kakashi wondered how long it would be until Sasuke met the exact same fate. Was it already too late?

* * *

Kaine was disturbed by the burst of sound and motion that seemed to come from every direction. He threw his head to one side, then the other, unable to find a place within sight that wasn't being torn into tiny shards. His first thought was Makoto—he looked to where she had been tied down, but it was further than he thought. She was still well out of reach of the strings. He, on the other hand, was fully surrounded by the mayhem and it was _closing in_. Trees were sheared in half and rocks were turned to flying dust. A crater was forming around him and a sound like an electric saw was filling his ears. Cassy was standing in front of him, unharmed as if she were in her own little bubble—she was, truthfully. Her strings were doing the shredding, and they were following her exact commands.

Kaine had to act quickly to avoid being minced into bite-sized morsels, and as the window of opportunity began to close, he roared outward. He punched his fists together, running a lightning current from one arm to the next until both of his limbs were lined with the bright blue glow. He twirled himself into a sideways leap, keeping his arms out in front and aiming to burst his way through the cutting strings. He felt himself collide with something, and his charged fists fought against the friction with a mighty effort. He was repelled, though, and knocked back into the center of the sphere.

_Fine,_ Kaine thought. _If lightning doesn't work, I'll carve my way out with water._ He formed the seals urgently, inhaling deep and puffing his chest out. When he exhaled, he blasted out a foam of water, constantly tightening his lips until the jet stream was thin and intense. At first, the water was deflected by the strings, but he doubled the force and eventually sliced through the invisible threads. When the debris stopped flying from one direction, Kaine dove through the narrow opening that he had created before Cassy could fill it again. He tumbled out and rolled over his shoulders before landing on his knees and one hand. He stood quickly, reaching to his back by instinct and looking for his sword, which was still missing—it was somewhere in that forest, though.

_First step: get away from Makoto. Second: find my sword. Third: don't die? Maybe that should be the first one... _Kaine mused, backpedaling from Cassy as she turned to walk after him. She was in no hurry to reach him with her physical self—her strings were long, and the cutting cyclone seemed to keep pace with Kaine with relative ease.

"I'd rather not kill you, munchkin," Cassy chirped, arms writhing and weaving through the air as she deftly controlled the strings. "I'll bet my _mask_ that you hate Susumu almost as much as I do," she wagered, calling through the noise of her technique. The woods were being thoroughly dismantled, giant trees that were centuries old suddenly being reduced to sawdust and table legs. "What'll you bet in return!?" She lashed out with her right arm, sending the threads a bit further, a bit faster.

Kaine was caught by surprise, and although he could get a reasonable idea of where the strings were sent by the way she moved, that thrash was too quick for him, and he felt a searing hot pain cut into his forearm. The gash was significant, and it joined a building inventory of wounds on his right side—first his palm, then his shoulder, and finally his forearm. His enemy seemed to know that he was already significantly damaged. He winced from the pain but he didn't stop his backward hopping. He couldn't afford to turn and run all-out; he had to keep his eyes on those dextrous fingertips. "It's not a bet I want to make!" Kaine replied, trying to maintain his defiance. "I don't want to measure myself by how much _hatred_ I feel!" He was leading Cassy away from Makoto, but he was subsequently being led by the huge cutting zone into a corner made of rocks and fallen logs. He couldn't count on his approaching adversary to cut a new path for him.

Kaine formed more seals, throwing a few of his lightning-charged water bolts. It did no good; the strings were too resilient. The bolts were deflected narrowly in one direction or another, never fully stopped but always flying just a few inches too far to the left or right. The wind of the whizzing projectiles rustled Cassy's hood, but she never even felt an impact when they exploded behind her shoulders. "Gonna have to do better," she chimed, her footsteps becoming tauntingly slow. "Maybe you just need more of a reason to _hate_ _me_..."

Kaine considered making a jump for the top of the alcove he was being led into. It was high, but he could make it—the question was whether or not he could do it quickly enough to avoid the capturing chakra tendrils. Cassy had already proven capable of catching moving targets, and once he was in the air, he would have been at her mercy. He only had one other option at that point. He smirked at the thought: _Well, Kakashi did say that I'll probably need to unlock it through combat training. Real combat is even better...I hope. _He gulped at the end, suddenly having doubts. He was backed into the corner by then, though—he had spent too much time mulling it over, and his final option was to see what came out.

He formed a sequence of seals, then clapped his hands together, praying within himself that he was doing it right. He could feel the whipping wind of the approaching strings. His only solace was that Cassy liked to play with her food; if she wanted to, she could have torn him into seven equally-sized pieces and dropped him into a massive pot of stew. Kaine concentrated hard, a bead of sweat rolling over his forehead and down the rim of his eye...but all that emerged from between his hands was the same pittering drop of water that he had gotten before. His tan skin turned as white as it had ever been, and his eyebrow twitched. _That's not fair..._

Cassy saw the display and broke into a long string of giggles, her threads falling limp as she cackled at Kaine's expense, quite literally falling onto her back and clutching her gut with the intensity of her amusement. "Ohhh, wow...you're so damned _adorable_ when you fail, kid!" she said through a voice that made it seem like she was crying tears of joy under the mask. Her attention was off of Kaine, and with her strings turning docile, he took his moment to strike. He charged with all the speed he could summon up—which was a lot of speed, given his pumping adrenaline.

Cassy was still laughing, right up until the moment that Kaine's fist was an inch from the dark green of her mask. The strings deftly woke from their inactivity and wrapped around his wrist, guiding his punch to the left of her face and driving his knuckles into the dry dirt. He left a fairly nice crater, but he missed his target. A knee came from below as Cassy slammed it into his gut, forcing him to cough up some rather unappetizing stomach acid, spitting it onto the floor beneath and reaching his hand down to clutch himself. He groaned with pain—she was stronger than she looked under all that cloth.

Cassy reached up with her hand and poked Kaine's forehead, lifting him up from his hunched-over pain and rolling him onto his back. She rolled with him, straddling him over the stomach and putting her hands on his chest. "Ohh, you're nice and solid under this vest, aren't you?" she purred, running a finger down the zipper line at the center of his protective blue layer. It was half-purple with blood. "Why don't we take a little break...?" she whispered, leaning down to touch the 'mouth' of her green mask to Kaine's forehead. Although she was an enemy, he couldn't help the rising red blush on his cheeks as she teased him. He snapped out of it quickly, though, and tightened his fist to throw a punch toward her masked cheek. Even with her hands occupied, one of her pinkies was precise enough to guide a string to stop his punch flat. "Now now, if you want to touch me," she hissed, guiding his hand with her strings, touching his tightly balled fist against the side of her hip. "You should aim a bit lower..."

"I'd never touch a woman like _you _except to blow your teeth out..." Kaine clenched his jaw together, then spat on Cassy's mask in defiance. She was tantalizingly warm against his stomach, and he could tell that she was _frustratingly_ soft beneath her robe, but his mind continued going to Makoto—he couldn't even _think_ of anything else. "Now...get _off of me!_" He reeled his head back and slammed his forehead into Cassy's mask. She wasn't expecting that collision, as obvious as it seemed—maybe she thought she was getting through to him. She took the hit to the facemask, but its material held steady against the impact. Still, she was sent reeling back at the neck, her focus lost just long enough for Kaine's hand to wriggle free of her strings and launch into a follow up punch that knocked her in the toned tummy. She coughed in surprise and leaped backward, landing upright on both legs and shaking her head as if to shake her hair out.

"Naughty boy," she wheezed huskily through a gasp, bringing a hand up to reposition her mask. It had been knocked slightly ajar, and when she moved it back into place, a tiny hairline crack wrinkled through the structure. "You're not bad, but you could be better," she concluded, giggling without much hesitation. "I think I know what the problem is, though...I saw how _angry_ you got when your lady friends started attacking each other." Cassy turned around, looking toward where the fight had begun beside the stream. "Even though they _both_ had a knife, you only wanted to kill the _blonde_ one...you must _really_ _like_ the other one," she hummed, tapping her chin, then the sound turned into a whistle of thoughtful understanding. "So, if I kill the _little one_, you'll have no choice but to come crying into _my_ arms, right?"

"What kind of_ sick game_ are you playing?" Kaine demanded. He had scrambled onto his feet once the weight was taken from his stomach. "Don't you _dare_ go near her..." he fired off a few seals in rapid succession, then breathed out a quick bolt of lightning. As he should have expected, it was cut in half and forked its way along the trees behind Cassy, linking together as if the wood was made of metal. He formed different seals, this time firing off the jet of water that had succeeded in cutting through her strings earlier—he gave it everything he had, but Cassy brought both of her hands together, lining up a thick procession of strings to disperse the force of the impact and scatter the water into harmless mist. A lovely rainbow formed amidst the uselessness of Kaine's assault, and he started to pant breathlessly. He was losing blood and had used a lot of chakra. Cassy, on the other hand, seemed like she was only getting started.

"If you want to know my game, you'd better follow me quick...you don't want to miss what I'm gonna do to her..." Cassy cackled like a psychopath and turned on her heel to scamper off. Kaine cursed loudly and ran off to follow her. She was fast—faster than Kaine's foot speed, remarkably. She waited up for him, though. Kaine was silently thankful for the woman's personality, her obsession with playing a game—if she had been as quick to act as Mamban or Minoru, Makoto would have likely already been dead. In fact, Kaine would have been, too. He only hoped that her arrogant teasing would end for _her_ the same way it ended for _him_ when he toyed with Akemi during their test—with a blade through the gut.

* * *

Tenzo stopped the thrown ice weapon by calling up a torrent of water. The spear was thrown for his heart, and he couldn't move quickly enough to wholly avoid any damage, so he spit up a gush of water as a way of gambling—if the water didn't freeze, then the spear would've slipped right through and rammed into his chest. Fortunately for Tenzo, the freezing properties of the weapon remained, and the water turned to ice on contact, abruptly stopping the momentum. He bit off the end of his water stream before the ice could reach him, then took a step back. _So, if everything freezes, maybe I can catch him in his own trap,_ Tenzo theorized. He worked up another blast of water, sending it toward Seshu in massive volumes.

Seshu grimaced, suddenly finding himself on the defensive. He took a few nimble steps back, avoiding the rushing waves but unable to go very far in the dome he constructed for himself. As water got close, it did begin to freeze, but fresh water continued to cascade over it. Tenzo was smart—he managed the waves in short, controlled bursts to prevent a chain of freezing energy from working its way back to him. "Clever," Seshu said between jumps. "But you'll only end up freezing yourself at this rate!" The icy enemy was working his way around the half-circle shape of their arena to get closer to Tenzo.

"Don't count on it!" Tenzo called out, slapping the ground as Seshu got near enough. A thick wall of earth rose between them, and then another pair of walls formed a ceiling-high canal that led in a curve all the way back to Tenzo's mouth. He forced more water out, filling the tunnel with liquid and ensuring that it found its way to Seshu as quickly as possible. The risen earth was already beginning to freeze. _He'll try to break his way out from there. _Tenzo turned once the mud was suitably converted to crystal clear ice. Seshu burst through, but he ran into a thick splash of water aimed right for him. It washed over him and began to freeze, slowing the iceman's movements for a split second before he formed a hand sign. The freezing stopped, but Seshu similarly stopped his own advance, putting some distance between himself and Tenzo.

"Nice try, Kinoe," Seshu chided, then formed another hand seal that was similar to the first. Tenzo was paying attention.

_He has to form a seal to turn the freezing on and off, _Tenzo realized, then spoke aloud. "You're slippery, Seshu. I'm sure you come in handy whenever Mamban needs a skating rink..."

Seshu's brow quivered and he rose an annoyed fist. "What was that?" He threw his hand forward, firing off a few icy spikes from his fingertips. Tenzo rose another swell of water, and it froze on contact. "You're going to regret taking me lightly," Seshu continued, forming up another icy spear. He didn't throw it this time, instead choosing to take the fight to Tenzo on foot. The latter pulled out another thrice-woven wooden polearm, keeping Seshu's attacks at a healthy distance. The wood began to freeze, but Tenzo was preemptively adding new layers to its construction from the inside out, shedding the frozen surface to make room for the fresh wood beneath. Despite being slowed, Tenzo was able to fight Seshu with a superior weapon technique, focusing on tight, controlled movements with a long staff to provide maximum effectiveness.

Seshu was a wild fighter, swinging left and right and pushing to close the gap. Tenzo was eventually overcome by the ferocity, and Seshu got alarmingly close, dropping his weapon and reaching a gloved hand toward Tenzo's faceplate. _If he touches me, I'm finished; _Tenzo acted quickly on his thoughts. His hands were frigid and he could feel himself shaking off ice crystals, but he sent out a water blast just in time. Seshu seemed to be afraid of the water, which further proved Tenzo's theory that it was a vital tool for his victory. "How long can you keep that curse mark active, Seshu? I'd bet that it's starting to hurt you to maintain it..."

Seshu chuckled, shaking his head and running his hands through his hair, turning the white strands even icier. When he whipped his head from one side to the next, snowflakes fluttered around his face. "I've dealt with it for most of my life. I don't need to turn it off...you should worry more about the condition _you're_ in."

Tenzo gave a confident huff, forming a few seals in a row, queuing up the chakra for a succession of techniques that he hoped would end the battle for good. He was acting self-sure, but in the privacy of his own mind he was definitely aware of being on his last leg. He had chakra left, but his body was beginning to seize up on him. Already, he felt like his limbs were about to stop responding. The first jutsu was a wall of earth behind Seshu's back, seeking to funnel him into an enclosure. The second was a large wave of water.

Seshu lifted his hand, forming a seal to cease his freezing presence, then holding out his hand to divert the flow of the water with his own chakra. The wave hit him firmly, but it didn't freeze—Tenzo took that as the signal to send out his last technique in the barrage, the combination of earth and water. Wooden rods stretched from the raised earthen barricade behind Seshu while his attention was on the wave in front of him. Rather than seek to harm him in the long term, the rods turned to shackles that bound his hands to prevent him from creating his freezing seal. Seshu felt the wood grasping around his wrists, and he put up a valiant effort to resist their hold, but he wasn't quite strong enough, physically. Eventually, when his face was beet red and his mouth was stretched into a huge roar, he gave up and the wood snapped back, pinning him viciously to the earthen wall and pulling his arms far away from one another.

Tenzo breathed a sigh of relief, then picked up his wooden polearm from the dirt at his feet, holding it in front of himself and then pressing its sharpened tip to Seshu's chest. "Are you going to make me kill you, Seshu, or are you going to lower this dome?"

Seshu smirked, slanting his head and narrowing his eyes. He was beaten, though he continued to struggle against the bindings at his wrists. He was pulled too far apart to make full use of his muscles. His curse mark was working on overdrive to feed him more power, but Tenzo's own hand was folded into a seal that gave his binding technique enough strength to match it. "Go to hell, Kinoe," Seshu replied, biting and grinding his teeth together as if he was trying to form signs with them.

"You're wasting your effort. This wood can hold things that are a lot bigger, stronger, scarier, and smarter than you," Tenzo said with full satisfaction. It was a hard fight to get him there, but once the enemy was locked up in his shackles, Tenzo knew there was nothing he could do to escape. "I'll free your hands, and you'll undo this dome. You should know that I'll recognize your freezing seal when I see it...so, if you try to pull a fast one, I'll finish you off."

Seshu sighed, lowering his head. "You got me, then. I'll let you guys out," he said, sounding utterly deflated. His sincerity was difficult to ascertain, however.

"Perfect." Tenzo kept his bladed wooden spear on Seshu's chest, feeling with a prod that he was over soft flesh and not another layer of armor behind the robe. He poked hard just to make sure, and Seshu winced from the pain of near-penetration. Good enough—Tenzo began to gradually loosen the tightness of Seshu's bonds, leaving his wrists wrapped but giving them more room to move.

Once his hands were close enough together, Seshu predictably started to form the seal that activated his freezing aura. Tenzo responded in kind by driving the wooden pike through his chest and into the moist earthen wall behind Seshu's back. The skewered, blank-eyed male looked absolutely shocked. "I...I thought..." Seshu began, struggling to move; struggling to form his seal. "I thought you were bluffing..." He abruptly fell dead standing up, trussed against the wall by wood and impaled all the way through by a spear.

Tenzo sighed, yanking his spear out from Seshu's body and unclasping him from his shackles. Seshu of the Frosted River fell limply to the ground, certainly dead. "I need to learn to stop giving people chances," Tenzo grumbled before he turned to inspect the icy dome. Without its master to maintain it, the sphere began to melt...though, the process was slow on the fifty-five degree morning outside. "And here I am without a fire technique to use," Tenzo lamented, looking toward the divider that kept him apart from Kakashi. "Ah well, _he'll_ get us both out soon enough."

* * *

Rika and Akemi were staring intensely at Mamban. Neither one of the women were willing to make the first move. The mastermind in the red mask had clearly heard Akemi's statement about Cassy and decided that he liked the news. He breathed a sigh that relaxed him. "Oh, so the Hamasaki boy thinks he can handle Cassy by himself, does he?" Mamban snickered like a brat. "Should be fun to see what he looks like when she finishes with him. He'll probably die with a big smile on his face..."

"Your girlfriend's _creepy_," Akemi replied, thinking back to the too-intimate touch that still felt like it was brushing along her cheek. "Hamasaki's probably got her little neck in his hands as we speak," Akemi said without thinking, then immediately regretted calling up the stinging memory. Though she didn't want to admit it to herself, and certainly not to Rika, she was absolutely certain that she was going to die back there at the hands of her own brother. She brought an idle, subconscious hand to her throat, feeling bruises along the skin. Her face was beaten to hell, too—she was glad that her nose was unbroken, and she managed to keep all of her teeth, but her jaw was in constant pain and her wrist still hurt from when he yanked her into the first punch. She was in no condition to take on an opponent of Mamban's level...as such, she decided that her only reasonable option was to stall for time.

Mamban noticed the subtle implication of Akemi's hand gesture, keeping up with his laughter. He was in no hurry, as it was—his real target hadn't yet arrived. "Had a little-bitty run-in with him, didn't you? Ah, well, It's nothing to worry about, I'm sure...siblings try to _violently maim_ one another all the time."

Akemi looked to Rika; to the scar on her arm that came from Makoto, accidental or not. There were other cuts and bruises on Rika's sleeveless limbs, a lot of them left from their personal training sessions, a few from their escape, and a few more from her current predicament in the village. Rika spoke up to answer, noting Aki's silence. "Siblings fight, but they _never_ stop loving each other...right, Aki?" She looked to her teacher for confirmation. She didn't know what might have happened between her two senseis, but she was trying to keep the one closest to her focused on the present, not the past.

Akemi took a moment, but then she nodded. "Right...never stop loving..." she clearly had her doubts. In that all-too-recent moment, it sincerely felt to Akemi like her 'brother' was choosing a girl who was practically a stranger over the well-being his own _family_. It hurt more than just the physical pain, more than just the fear of death—she began to feel like she was the less-important part of the arrangement. She felt like she was expendable, so long as Hamasaki's _precious little Makoto _got to survive. Somewhere deep, somewhere petty, Akemi began to wish that Makoto would die that day. She took the notion back right away when her rational mind kicked in, but she couldn't deny that she had heard her own thoughts. The odd sense of jealousy was beginning to worry her. It was Kaine's fault, not Makoto's—she should wish for _his _sorry ass to die, right?

Mamban was still there, though—she could sort through her personal drama on her own time. She was hardly free to ponder the meaning of life and her position in the universe while surrounded by zombies and a psychotic acid-slinger. He spoke up as if to remind her of his presence. "Do you want to take revenge for your friends from the village? Their shameless screams were _quite_ soothing, but after a time, they stopped...do you know _why_ they stopped screaming?"

Rika tensed, her eyes half-closing at the memory. She tried to resist the tears, but her vision went blurry. She felt Akemi's hand on her shoulder, a tight squeeze of strength that gave her the resolve to perk her head up, stick her chin out, and answer Mamban without a break in her voice. "They're dead. Weak. They never belonged in this world." She didn't mean a word of it—inside, she was still torn up and resentful. She wanted to hate Aki for leaving Mako and Fiona behind, but she couldn't. She owed her sensei her entire life, so holding a grudge would have been far too petty.

Mamban shook his head, the hugeness of his mask swaying on an axis that pivoted with his hidden neck. "No, no, my darling little peach," he said languidly. "Their suffering is far from over..." he snapped the fingers on his left hand, and then two robed, masked figures appeared from the surrounding trees, agile like trained ninjas. They stood obediently at Mamban's side, close to one another. "I've added them to my _collection_..." he walked over to the bodies, one male and one female, and put his arms around their shoulders like he was a proud father. "They're much stronger _now_ than they were before, you might find..."

Akemi was speechless, and Rika was worse—the tears that she had fought back were suddenly flowing with double their initial intensity, trickling down her rounded cheeks and dropping from her chin to splash impotently on the inn roof. She sniffled, but tried to hide it. "You're lying," she said through a puffy throat and wet lips. "They're free, their spirits are at peace...I brought flowers to their _graves_..."

Mamban's sickening hands came to the two masks upon the faces of his slaves. He knocked the disguises away with a flick of each hand's thumb, and as the images hidden behind them were revealed, Rika screamed with horrified regret, covering her mouth with one hand and reaching the other hand out as if to grab the hope as it fled her soul. The faces indeed belonged to Mako and Fiona, but were horribly, almost unrecognizably scarred. Acid had streaked across their mouths and eyes, leaving flesh exposed and pulsating. Fiona's left eye was burned away, leaving a mess of ruined skin to seal over the empty socket. Their expressions were dead and gone. "Say _hello_..." Mamban sang out.

Akemi was typically rather nonchalant in such situations, but hearing the terror and despair in Rika's shriek caused her entire body to tremble. It was a sound worse than anything Kaine had done to her; it was a sound that told her in no uncertain terms that she had _failed_ to protect her cherished student. The sound made her weak, but then it made her _strong_. "Cry for them, Rika," Akemi whispered, her voice soft and soothing and filled with new resolve. "Cry for them right now, but only until I _free them_ from this _monster_."

"Mmm," Mamban hummed, unimpressed. "Before Kakashi arrives, I think I'll add the two of _you_ to my collection as well...you will complete a _fine_ set with your friends."

* * *

**That's all for now! The next update is coming soon. **


	27. There is Always Hope

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Cassy was speedy, and she reached Makoto before Kaine could get between them. By the time Kaine pushed through the low-hanging twigs and bushes that framed the stream's banks, Cassy was over Makoto's trapped arms and legs with a kunai held to the younger girl's throat. There was already a dab of her blood lining the point of the blade, trickling down her pale neck and dripping onto the leaves below. "Ahh," Cassy whistled, warm and inviting. "You decided to join us after all?"

It had only been a few seconds since he lost sight of her, but he knew the masked woman was toying with him. Kaine was frozen, though, bound to inaction so long as Makoto was in danger. He held his hands up, palms flat, separate, and even, with his fingers spread apart to show that he had no weapon. "Don't hurt her, Cassy," he said, sounding like he was conceding but looking like he was ready to tear into her flesh with his raw fingernails. "We can play any game you want, just leave Makoto out of it..."

Cassy dropped the kunai, tossing it into the air until it was caught by one of her slender strings, looping around its base and holding it idle. It swayed in the wind like it was hanging on a clothesline. "Who's playing games here?" Cassy asked teasingly, standing up and leaving Makoto safely locked by Akemi's earthen binds. "A game suggests that it's a contest, that somebody's going to win in the end." She stepped closer to Kaine, heel-to-toe in a straight line. She took her sweet time moving closer, savoring the helplessness in her prey's eyes. "Regardless of how this turns out, between you and I...? We're not really part of the big show."

Kaine furrowed his brows, taking a step back as Cassy got near. He looked to Makoto, trying to gauge whether or not he could reach her in time to run away with her. It was a stupid plan and the thought occurred to him that Cassy could catch up to him even if he was going his hardest. He shook his head, focusing on what the menacing lady had to say. As soon as she started, he groaned with frustration, running a hand over his sliced forearm. "We're not part of the show? Say it clearly, or just kill me now. I'm sick of this wordplay _already_."

Cassy tsked, shaking her head and reaching up to tap her chin beneath the underside of her mask. The deeply tan skin that made up her neck below could just barely be seen in the darkness that her hood produced. "Mamban, Susumu, Kakashi, Kinoe—sorry, I mean 'Tenzo'; they're the show-runners of this play, the main attractions. The rest of us are just the technicians, the costume designers; perhaps we do the makeup. I may hold the strings," she suggested, wriggling her fingers and allowing the floating kunai to dance provocatively along her tightly-robed frame. "But I didn't write the script. I don't get to decide how it all _ends_."

Kaine rolled his eyes. Minoru had already made him sick of cryptic speeches years ago; he was less than enthusiastic about hearing another one. Still, he felt the need to engage her on her terms. Makoto may not have had an edge to her neck at that moment, but the delicately floating kunai was enough of a threat to keep Kaine compliant. "If it's a play, and you've got the strings, can't you drop some of the scenery on Mamban's head and _change_ the ending?"

Cassy giggled, waving her hand dismissively. "That's adorable, kid. You know, I've got to wonder if there's anything you're _really_ afraid of. Living a life like yours must've been pretty tough on a rugrat." She was close to him, now, reaching her hand up to brush her gloved fingers across Kaine's good arm. He clenched his fist, but even that tiny, almost-imperceptible motion was enough to tip Cassy off. The kunai on her string was lashed toward Makoto, carelessly cutting her across the cheek as it got into position on her neck. The dim-eyed Makoto made no sounds of pain; she didn't even blink. "I may not control the play for the stars, but _we're_ both expendable. We get to do whatever we like to each other, so long as we don't change the destined course."

Kaine loosened his fist, and the kunai was pulled away from Makoto's tender throat. He breathed a thick sigh of relief, though he tried not to make it so obvious. Cassy was right in front of his face again, and practically climbing onto his shoulders with both greedy hands. Her fingers clamped against his upper arms, feeling his dense muscles and humming to herself. "You know, I think your potential was wasted on Susumu, and definitely wasted on the girl over there. How about you come with me, Goda, Seshu, and Mamban? I'm sure you'll prove useful..."

Kaine stepped back from her, unable to tolerate the sense of powerlessness that she bestowed upon him. His urge to protect Makoto was overriding his normal instincts. Since when did he care about the well-being of somebody else? Since when did he hold his tongue for the sake of another person's safety? He hardly felt like himself, anymore. "I'm not going anywhere with anybody," he said, his voice cold and calm despite his eyes. The turbulent blue of his gaze was a portal into his terse anxiety. The danger hanging over Makoto's head was like a lamprey digging into Kaine's own neck. "If you're going to kill her, just kill her, and if you're going to kill me, too...even better. I've grown pretty sick of living in a world where there's no hope."

Cassy sighed, allowing Kaine to step away, then turning her back on him, folding her arms stubbornly beneath her generous bosom. "That's no fun at all. I _really_ thought you were more defiant than _that_. What happened to the Kaine Hamasaki who slaughtered our evaluation team? _That's_ the guy I wanted to meet in person...I saw you out there, gasping for breath, struggling for life, all while snapping a helpless, beaten man's neck. You were bleeding before the first blow was thrown, yet you walked away the victor—well, you dragged yourself through the mud, but it was awe-inspiring, nonetheless."

Kaine blinked. "What? You were there?" He found the thought difficult to believe.

"Of course I was there, goofball," Cassy said back cheerfully. "How else would I know what happened?"

The deep-blue hair on Kaine's head was mangled by his hand as he clutched himself, squeezing and pulling on the locks as if trying to air out his brain. "Why didn't you finish me off, then? Why did you let Kakashi take me?"

Cassy shrugged. "Like I said, I don't write the script. Mamban runs our leg of the show, and I was told to watch the engagement. I think he took an interest in you the last time you visited the Leaf. Say, why did Susumu let you out of his sight like that, anyway? Mamban tells me that your beloved Minoru likes to poison his loyal subjects to keep them submissive; wouldn't he want to keep you around, keep you docile?"

Kaine shook his head, clearing his thoughts. "It doesn't matter...it _really_ doesn't matter..." He was trying to be angry, but instead he felt compelled by something deeper. "Whether I was poisoned, whether I was being controlled, whether my memories were wiped, whether I'm a man or a monster." Kaine took a deep breath, clapping his hands together fluidly. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the feel of his own body as his palms struck together. They felt magnetized and automatic. It was different this time. "The only thing that matters here is that you're threatening a person who I want to protect. I nearly killed my _sister_ because of her...what do you think I'll do to a sadist like _you_?"

Cassy saw the signs form, and following her cue the kunai was back on Makoto's throat, ready to slit it open with another flick. "Careful there. You can't protect her if she's dead."

Kaine took a deep, slow breath, leveling his mind and feeling the chakra flow between his fingers. During training, he had just been going through the motions, trying to appease Kakashi, Tenzo, and himself by giving it a 'good try'. As it turns out, his body knew all along what needed to happen. He was born with that knowledge, but it was dormantly locked away in every single cell. He thought that combat was the key, but the actual key was lying there in front of him. In that perfect moment, all of the pieces were falling into place, and something began to swell up from his deepest consciousness. He gave a single warning, spoken through clenched teeth. "You've got one chance to get away from her, Cassy...I can feel something coming."

"Mmm," the woman hummed, tilting her body into a luscious pose. "I'm waiting for it, kid...show me what you've got!" She twiddled her fingers, swift strings whipping toward the sign that Kaine was holding together, seeking to interrupt it. Without any warning, a snapping sound filled the air and Cassy reeled her hand back in momentary fright. She took a second to process what happened. "Oh, that's bad," she mumbled to herself. The string didn't reach its target. She sent more, but they were unable to interrupt the signs, becoming slack as they got close. "That's _real_ bad." She started to sweep her strings around at Kaine's ankles, but something had emerged from between his hands that served to protect him from the lashing.

Kaine exhaled, shakily discarding the preparatory breath from his lungs as he finished exerting his chakra. Makoto was still unsafe, but Cassy had apparently forgotten about the girl...or, perhaps she hadn't forgotten at all. Surrounding Kaine in wispy, coal-black tendrils were what seemed to be storm clouds, and they were growing by the moment. As Cassy's chakra strings got close, they were sucked into the forming cloud, and their energy bolstered the unnatural weather. Electric jolts ran the length of each separate crescent-shaped cloud, and Kaine finally opened his eyes. His irises were charged with sparks, wearing his energy boldly within his gaze. The power of his unleashed kekkei genkai ran up and down his tingling body, and he struggled to control its mounting influence.

Cassy turned, recalling Makoto at the last second and deciding that it was as good a time as any to have her fun. The string that held the kunai a command toward the girl's throat as if loaded into a slingshot, but a streak of dark clouds intercepted it on its way, knocking the string limp, thus dropping the kunai onto the ground harmlessly. The chakra of her string was totally absorbed. "That isn't just bad...that's _Storm Release!_" Cassy realized in a moment of clarity that came too late. She was looking up to the sky. The blue expanse was pure and clear, but she heard thunder all around her head, engulfing her. In a sudden flash that came from every direction, the clouds unleashed their gathered energy as a multi-pronged jolt of liquid electricity. Rain and lightning combined into a single element that crushed Cassy from head to toe, overloading her nerves and synapses with white light. She went blind, lost all her thoughts, and after a time of being held up by electrically-tense muscles, she crumpled down to the ground in a smoldering heap.

Kaine watched from the outside. Each of the thick dark clouds had pulled chakra from his hands and from Cassy's strings, fueling the combination into a heaping, hyper-charged atmospheric anomaly. When the limit of its chakra absorption was reached, the energy was quickly reconstituted and then released in a tantrum of light and sound, deafening even its caster when the blast rang through the woods. He saw bands of electricity run up and down the slender body of Cassy, and he thought for sure that he caught brief glimpses of the ghostly white bones lurking beneath her layers. Her unbidden scream was haunting as it filled his ringing ears—there was no seduction in her agony, no coy attempts to mislead his thoughts. Under the weight of such pain, only truth could leave her lips. He thought that he wanted to look away from the grisly sight, but in the end, he couldn't. He watched her writhe and twitch and fall into a mass of limp muscle. She was no longer moving. Her strings were completely gone.

Kaine felt the thrill of victory as the clouds dispersed, and he looked to his hands in awe of his own power. While it was happening, some part of him could feel every drop of chakra that was sucked into his clouds; he felt the surge of energy as it was all released into the air, focused onto the object of his purest hatred. He wanted the woman dead, and his decimating clouds obeyed on instinct. He realized just then what Tenzo had meant—things simply happened as he willed them to happen. It was a fully draining experience, though, and despite the adrenaline that was still flooding Kaine's system he found himself unable to stand up. He fell, just like Cassy had fallen, albeit he was a bit less crispy when he hit the leaves. He panted and rolled onto his back to stare up to the sky. Akemi was off somewhere, and most likely she was fighting. He wanted to help her, but he was completely empty. As powerful as his new technique was, it drew too much from his considerable chakra reserves. He had protected Makoto, but he understood that he was made entirely useless as a result. As he passed out from exhaustion, he felt entirely peaceful knowing that he could still hear the sound of Makoto's breathing.

* * *

Akemi was staring Mamban's mask down, full of determination as he stood between Mako and Fiona. Their bodies were more than just empty husks—their chests rose and fell visibly, their eyes were glistening with moisture and their nostrils flared. Despite their horribly burned appearances and their vacant expressions, they were still alive. Akemi was determined to do two things—keep them that way, and wrest them free of Mamban's control, no matter what it took. Rika's scream led into her total collapse; the rookie ninja had seen many difficult things since leaving Monolith Point, but she wasn't prepared to see the living torture of the two friends she thought were at peace. It came as too much of a shock, even more so than her father's attack and the similar status of the entire village.

Akemi looked to Rika as the latter fell onto her knees, hands clasping at her pants and squeezing tight. "We're not letting him get away with this. We're _both_ going to take him down—right, Rika?" Akemi squeezed her shoulder, trying to collect her into sanity once more. It was little use. The shock was too great, all compounded with the rest of the day's happenings. Her entire home, her peaceful world, had been totally shattered.

"I think the poor girl's broken," Mamban said viciously. "Don't worry...I'll fix her..." he began to walk forward, and Mako and Fiona accompanied him in shambling slowness. "She only wants to be with her friends again, right?" He stopped short, raising his hands and pointing both of his thumbs toward Rika. "Bring her to me, then," he ordered, then stepped back to allow his slaves to fight for him. Unlike the dumbstruck townsfolk, Mako and Fiona were capable puppets—Akemi was nearly overcome by their joint attack, blades produced from their robed sleeves and held tightly in two hands. Aki managed to twirl herself and dodge each long knife, but only barely. She landed on one foot and one hand, springing herself upright and finding herself under constant pressure from her former students.

_He's right—they're definitely stronger now than they ever were before, _Akemi thought. Rika was kept in the corner of her vision, but she was forced to devote most of her attention to her captured opponents. Her knife was sparking and clanging against those of the duo, and she had a limited space to move through atop the inn's roof. She could have killed them both and saved a lot of time and effort, but she refused to do it. She saw their mangled faces, and where Rika could only witness ruination, Akemi beheld a second chance. She was being given an opportunity to repair the past, the first time she could ever take something back. She would never regret saving Rika's life, but she had been harshly resenting herself due to letting the others fall into such peril in the first place.

Mako was slower than Fiona, but stronger. Together, they made for a very dangerous opponent. They lacked any jutsu, but their physical prowess was magnified a dozen times or more by whatever Mamban had done to them. Akemi dealt a few glancing blows to keep them back, but she knew she had to come up with a plan to put them down for a longer period. Mamban was her enemy—the mangled couple amounted to little more than a distraction. She took a cut to the back of her hand, then another to the elbow of her other arm. The wounds were skin deep, nothing to worry about, but Akemi heard Rika gasp as they opened. _I'll be fine, _she wanted to say. _Don't worry about me. Protect yourself—run away. _She didn't dare to open her mouth, though. She knew Mamban's type. He relished in misery, and she would be damned before she gave him something to latch onto. If it kept Mamban's focus entirely on her, she would play the hardened hero.

"Why won't you kill them, my dear?" Mamban spoke up from the sidelines, crouching down to sit on his ankles beneath the flowing hem of his dark robe. He tsked, wagging a finger. "I can see that you're holding back—don't try to play it off. You thought they were dead already, didn't you? I've given you the chance to make your thoughts into the truth; a small opening through which you can seize the world—turn it into the ugly thing you've always known it to be!" He made a strangling motion with both hands, his sleeves flapping in a sudden rush of blasting wind. Following the wind was a tremendous burst of light and a raucous clash that sounded a lot like thunder. It must have been one of Kaine's attacks.

Akemi was distracted by the wave of light and sound, but the controlled couple was not so easily swayed. Aki took an elbow to the gut and a knife slash across the face for her inattention, a blade digging into her cheek in a curved line and drawing a glob of blood that poured down her jaw and neck all at once. It looked worse than it was, but Rika was again disturbed by the sight, whimpering with worry. Akemi couldn't hold her silence. "Get out of here, Rika! This isn't something you need to see!"

Mamban looked to the curly-headed girl as well, brushing his hand down the side of his oversized mask. "She's right, you know. I don't even think _I _want to see the look on your face while your beloved sensei slaughters your family and friends below." He looked over his shoulder, clicking his tongue with pity toward the civilians at the ground level who uselessly clawed at the firm wooden slats that lined the inn's side. They couldn't climb up even if Mamban wanted them to; they lacked the physical conditioning. "Unlike you, Rika Mori...Akemi Yamaguchi is part of the very _real_ world. She knows the cost of survival." He held up two fingers. "For _one_ to live," he lowered one of those fingers dramatically. "_Another_ must die. Your teacher would most certainly butcher your entire village for the sake of her own life...Do you want to see that happen?"

Rika shook her head, clasping her hands to her chest and tightening her chest. "No...she wouldn't do that." The less experienced woman got onto her feet, shaky at first but gaining her orientation while she looked at Mamban. "Not if she thought it would hurt me."

Mamban's head tilted curiously. "So it's like that, is it? Fine, then..._I'll_ be the one to hurt you." The wicked ringleader raised his hand, spreading his fingers out. They began to drip with potent green fluid, and the smell of thick vinegar filled the air. He threw his arm out haphazardly, aiming it toward the sea of mindless life that swarmed below. Rika reached a hand out as if she could stop the splash of liquid, but she couldn't. She watched, eyes glued to the arc of acid as it fell free of Mamban's sweeping motion and began to cascade toward the people below. Among those people were Rika's father, her mother, her friends and frequent guests of the inn. She recognized all of their faces and had to quickly come to terms with their doom.

Akemi _refused_ to let it happen. She was given a burst of urgency, catching Mako by the wrist and turning him around to throw his whole body into Fiona's core, bowling them both over and off of the edge of the inn to crash against the trash pit. At the end of her motion, carrying the momentum of her throw, she launched toward Mamban while forming signs. The acid was close to the people, and she was low on chakra already, but she _couldn't _allow it to happen. She decided then, in that moment of desperation, that she would give her own life in exchange for Rika's happiness, if that's what it took. As the acid came within inches of Rika's father's head, his wrists broken and limp on the ends of his arms, his entire self was propelled backward. The whole swath of Mamban's 'soldiers' was in fact lurched backward, shoved by a swiveled wall of earth that both protected them from splashes of the acid and moved them out and away from the inn.

Mamban seemed impressed, humming his approval as his acid found empty soil. The mass of fleshy servitude had been shoved quite a distance, leaving behind fresh, wet mud for his acid to eat away at. The wet ground dissolved much more slowly, compared to the dryness of the last time it was seen. "Not bad, little Akem—" he was stopped by a hard, rocky fist that swiped across his mask, throwing him into a free spin and knocking him abruptly off the roof of the inn. He spiraled over the gap between buildings, slamming into a neighboring structure and crashing through its wooden wall, destroying its outer shell with the sound of snapping logs and shattering glass.

"Leave them out of this!" Akemi spat, throwing her head left and right as she threw the words out. "Torture _me, _fight _me,_ but leave Rika alone!" She held up a clenched fist that was lined with rock created by her own chakra. It gradually crumbled away after the punch, cracked by the intensity of her solid impact against Mamban's protected face.

Muffled behind wood and glass, Mamban's voice arose. "I told this to your student already, my dear, but they're already lost. There is no force in this world that can return things to the way they used to be." He was calm despite looking rather rough around the edges, his hand emerging from wooden rubble to grasp around for a solid handhold. He found a doorknob that was still attached to something, using it as leverage to free himself from the burying wood. "Will you die for an outcome that is completely _impossible_? Do you think that by stalling me, you will somehow spare these wretched souls from their ultimate fate?"

Akemi hurried to Rika's side, barely listening to Mamban's challenging rant as she panted breathlessly. "Are you okay?" Aki asked her student, and Rika nodded hesitantly.

"I think I'll be alright...but what about you? Your hand...your cheek...and the rest of your face. You're hurt, Aki...hurt bad." Rika brought a thin arm up to brush her thumb along the seeping wound on the back of Akemi's pale hand, frowning tightly. "Can you defeat him?" she asked quietly, a whisper that tickled her sensei's ear.

Akemi shook her head, smirking regretfully. "No...I definitely can't beat him alone. Couldn't even crack his mask."

"Then...why aren't we running away? Shouldn't we escape like the last time?" Rika tugged Akemi's wrist urgently, as if trying to physically convince her to flee.

"I can't leave it. Not like this...I came here, and I immediately resented your home for being so damned peaceful. I thought it was unfair for it to be completely untouched by war and despair, but..." Akemi looked around, mentally kicking herself. "I never imagined that I'd regret having that thought so quickly. I won't let your home be ruined, Rika. If I have to die for it, I will. Just promise me that you're going to survive, alright?" She knelt down and touched her forehead to Rika's. "_Promise me_."

Rika shook her head, pressing her skull against Akemi's when she touched her. "No, Aki...I won't let you to die for us. You say you want to protect me, but...I want to protect you, too...Besides, he says there's no hope for them. What if he's right?"

"He's wrong, Rika...there's always going to be hope," Akemi said, hardly believing that the words had come out of her mouth. "I know that, now..." she added, much more quietly. She brought her hand up to the back of Rika's head, brushing through her hair and then abruptly ruffling it between her fingers. "Look alive, or you'll be next...remember?" Akemi winked, standing up and hoisting Rika by the shoulder.

Rika stood firm, nodding again and taking a settling breath. "I remember...and neither one of us will be next. The next one to die is going to be _him._" Rika pointed her finger toward Mamban, who had finally crawled his way out of the debris of half a building. He shook himself clean, dusting off his robe with a sweeping hand.

"You girls are amusing," the red snake admitted. "I'll play with you for a while before I finish this." Another massive tremor overtook the region, branches flying off of trees and leaves swirling through the air. The sound that came along that time was more than just a crash of thunder—it was accompanied by the sound of an unrestrained howl of pain. It was a female voice that seemed an awful lot like she was screaming her final scream. Unmistakably, the voice belonged to Cassy.

Rika and Akemi looked at each other through the corner of their eyes. Rika hadn't known much about Cassy, but she could assume based on Mamban's concern a short while earlier that her pain would not be taken lightly. They stood in their own silence and stillness, and so did Mamban. The noise echoed through the trees, bouncing along the wooden buildings of Monolith Point and recurring a half a dozen times. As it subsided, the emptiness left behind was far more unsettling. Mamban was a statue, but for the soft flow of his robe against the wind.

After an uncomfortably long moment of quiet, Mamban took a step, then another, then his speed took him from his place in the adjacent building to a position standing behind and between Rika and Akemi. His arms were slung around each of their shoulders, his huge mask propped between their faces. They didn't even have time to blink before he was upon them. "On second thought," he murmured. "I'm going to kill you both right away."

His powerful hands clamped around Rika and Akemi's throats in tandem, and he lifted them off of their feet to kick fruitlessly against the air. Akemi was able to swing herself forward and plant the bottom of her foot onto Mamban's chest with ample force, but he was unmoved. His grip was tight around both throats, and squeezing tighter. The cry of Cassy had pushed him over the edge, and the teacher and student pair felt the strength of his profound thirst for vengeance.

As they struggled against his gloved grip, the unforgiving acid began to seep through the pores of his leathery fingers.

* * *

**Next update coming soon!**


	28. Drowning

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Akemi had a few thoughts running through her head. Before the acid seeped through Mamban's glove, she felt the breath restricted in her throat. The tight squeeze of fingers along the slender tube of her neck was absolute. She thrashed, she trembled, she tried to scream; nothing could be done. As she began to pick up that scent of vinegar, the unmistakable acidity, she ceased her thrashing and clawing and fell limp against her opponent. She turned her eyes, bulging and half-lidded, toward Rika. Her curly hair was caught up in Mamban's fingers, squeezed and constricted in a way that angered Akemi to the core—she wanted to see Rika free more than anything, just as Kaine wanted freedom for them all.

Though her kick couldn't hurt Mamban at the chest, Akemi found one last burst of motion hiding within her, and used that burst of willpower to contort her lower body and fling a solid foot toward the man's other wrist, the one with the breathless body of Rika hanging on the end. She kicked with all the might she had left, feeling her vision darken. She could see the sky turning from blue into an odd mix of colors all swimming together. As her foot connected, she felt a solid impact against the robe and the flesh and bone beneath, a force that should have shattered the aggressor's ulna bone at very least. Instead, she felt nothing. She heard no grunt, saw no jostling. Mamban's hardness of form was beyond her comprehension, and her last ditch effort ultimately had the impact of a mosquito bite.

She sagged helplessly, no longer able to try to wrestle free. Instead, in acceptance of her fate and with extreme guilt, she reached a quivering arm toward Rika. She found the unconscious student's hand, sliding her fingers between them and squeezing, whispering with the last of her breath. "I'm sorry," she murmured with the air left above Mamban's hand, sounding like a gurgling gutter as she wagged her tongue. Rika's hand was warm in hers, and she felt an odd comfort washing over her as she started to fade out of consciousness. She felt the very beginnings of the burning sensation that she once recalled against her arm. As she felt the harsh pain, she began to wish that Kaine had succeeded in killing her—better to meet her end by the devil she knew than by the monster with an unclear agenda and a hidden face.

Akemi wanted more than anything to take one final breath, to feel air in her lungs just one more time. With luck, she would pass out like Rika did before the acidic mixture ate too far into her flesh. As her awareness of the present became total blackness, she focused on a memory, a fleeting experience she had as a child shortly after meeting Minoru. She had fallen into a river and couldn't swim. As she desperately tried to thrash back toward the surface, roots tangled around her ankle and held her down. She recalled being surrounded by water, her ears entirely flooded and her lungs filling up quickly as well. Her sinuses had burned with the sensation of dirty river muck saturating both nostrils. Minoru had saved her, then; he had spun some excusing tale about _'feeling her distress'_, but with recent knowledge she finally realized that he had clearly seen her stumble from dozens of yards away. Such a shame that her final thought would be another piece of the puzzle; another reason why she should never have believed the man was who he claimed to be.

The memory seemed to continue. Her empty lungs felt full of water, her skin wet and her clothes waterlogged, clinging heavily to her body and cold with moisture. She felt a hand—Minoru's hand?—pressing on the center of her rib cage to revive her. Her head felt separate from her body and she could see herself lifelessly splayed out on the ground beneath caring hands. The pumping pressure kept her alert. She wondered if she was already dead, completely dissolved by Mamban's sinister jutsu, and the hands were her own consciousness trying to keep her alive, to keep her clinging. She decided that it was time to give up.

As she tried to allow her own life to eclipse, instead she felt a sudden rush of awareness. Her throat coughed without her permission and her eyes shot open abruptly, flooded with the beautiful colors of a real morning. The sky was still swimming, and she couldn't focus on anything. Frantically realizing that she was truly awake, feeling the throb of her heart and the cool wind of the day's cool weather, she wondered if she had been spared and turned into one of Mamban's puppets. When she tried to move her arm, it wouldn't respond. She felt water trickling down on both sides of her lips, and she was flat on her back with strong hands shoving against her chest to bring her back from the dead. It hadn't been a memory at all—when her vision came back into clarity, she looked to the face of the person who had saved her, and it wasn't Mamban's cruel red mask, but a much softer, more welcome face.

"Rika?" Akemi murmured weakly, and they were indeed Rika's eyes when they swelled up, wet and streaming with tears. "What happened?" Aki groggily continued, coughing again and trying to move, still unable to lift herself. It was a wonder that she could talk so quickly after waking. She couldn't turn her head, but she could turn her eyes; she was still in Monolith Point—she could tell by the massive rock at the base of her vision—but she was on the ground near its center, not on top of the precariously shaky roof of the inn. "Was I drowning...?" she asked weakly, and her eyes looked down toward her torso to see her shirt soaked. She could feel muddy water at her back. Something odd had happened.

Rather than give an answer, Rika stopped her CPR and realized that her sensei was awake. Rika threw her arms around Akemi's neck, crying some words that her sensei couldn't understand. Akemi's ears were clogged full of fluid, mud, and disorientation. She weakly regained control of her right arm, sliding it up to cradle around Rika's back, limply laying her weakness across her student's shoulders. Akemi gave up asking questions and ceased paying attention to any doubts that fought to be heard in her mind—whether it was heaven or hell, a dream or reality, she gave herself to the confounding, impossible, and beautifully hopeful moment.

* * *

Kakashi picked up immediately that Tenzo had defeated his own opponent when the icy dome started to warm. He was pulled from his thoughts about Sasuke and put back into a sense of getting things done. The moment he felt the air warming on its own, he weaved a Tiger Seal and produced a massive fireball. This time, unlike the last, he melted the ice away with ease. As the massive dome began to collapse into a wave of cold water, Kakashi looked toward the central divider as it became fluid. "Tenzo. Did you learn anything from your battle?"

Tenzo exhaled a long breath, taking in another to warm himself. Though the morning was rather cool, it was a summer's day compared to the frigid air of his previous confinement. He looked down toward the limp, unmasked body of Seshu and shook his head. "No, nothing important from this one. What about you, Kakashi? My seeds must have worn off inside you; I couldn't keep track of what you were doing over there."

Kakashi nodded his head, already moving his way toward Monolith Point, leaving the bodies of his enemies behind to be dealt with later. "I got a little bit. I learned something vague about Mamban's goals, and if the thought was true, we need to get to town immediately."

Tenzo gave a nod, following behind his senior and wondering aloud. "What do you think happened to Kaine while we were distracted?"

As if on cue, the sound of Cassy's blood-freezing scream echoed through the woods and reached their ears. A glance in that direction revealed dissipating storm clouds that reached toward the sky, residual flashes of lightning illuminating the landscape against the heated sun. Kakashi hummed, sounding a little bit impressed, "I think he's doing alright—let's hurry to the others."

They were never far from the small village, but every second counted in a combat situation. Leaping through the trees as empty branches whizzed by, Kakashi kept both eyes open and facing forward. Through the interwoven wood, he could see three figures atop the roof of the Mori family's inn. One of them wore a blood red mask that he recognized—he was the same man who had been standing in front of the Truth Village with Minoru's clone the day before. _Mamban,_ Kakashi concluded. Not only could he assume that identity from the confrontation with Minoru, but he had also seen glimpses of the very same mask in Goda's genjutsu-addled thoughts before the curse mark broke him free of the interrogation.

In Mamban's hands were the two girls who had arrived with Kaine. Kakashi didn't know either of them very well—Rika especially not, since she was asleep when he returned and busy when he left that morning with Kaine and Tenzo. Still, he could tell that they were both in a bad position, and before he even broke away from the treeline, he began stringing together a sequence of potent seals. With a mighty heave off of a final branch, he shattered a dozen branches with his body, arriving with a burst of snapping wood and a shout: _**"Water Style: Water Explosion Jutsu!"**_

Following behind Kakashi was all of the water from the melted ice prison. It was gathered into a massive, whirling vortex that was nearly the size of Monolith Point itself if the village's buildings were to be poured into a giant bottle. All of that roaring, foaming, raging force was pointed toward Mamban, and although the masked man saw the attack coming, it was moving quickly. He abandoned his grip on the two young women and made a leap to clear away from the building, but the water was chasing him down. Akemi and Rika were momentarily swept up by the flowing, living liquid, but once the acid had been washed off of their skin, they were spit out near the center of town. "Tenzo! See to those two, then gather up all these townsfolk!" Kakashi roared out. He had quickly noticed the zombie-like state of the village's denizens, and the idea meshed with what Goda's thoughts showed him: _Now, while we let Minoru simmer, let's talk about a quaint little circle called Monolith Point...we're going to use its people as fodder and its buildings as a base. We'll use them toward a short-term goal of capturing Kakashi Hatake's Sharingan for ourselves, and a longer-term goal of oblitering the Leaf __**and**__ the Truth entirely._

With those ambitious words playing through his mind, Kakashi was chasing Mamban down with twisting water until finally catching him against the wall of a taller building. The huge force of the water completely broke through the wooden structure, shattering it into cracked boards, shattered glass, and ruined furniture to mix with Mamban's weightlessly carried body. The impact had ripped him off of his feet and slammed his back through a dozen wells. Whatever the building had been, it wasn't that anymore—it was a massive heap of debris with a few standing pillars and a ground floor that could have served as a pool. The wave dispersed and set the whole of Monolith Point beneath a foot of water, leaving Mamban washed up and coughing beneath his mask, encircled by flotsam.

Kakashi was upon him in a split second, a kunai drawn and his right eye closed, focusing clearly with his Sharingan. "Your men are dead. Your plan isn't going to succeed, Mamban. Give it up and surrender quietly," he ordered sternly. "I won't hesitate to kill you, too."

Mamban was coughing, waving his arm in front of his face and straightening his mask. He had the wind knocked out of him by the blunt impact of water, but his body was largely unmarred. Kakashi could see his chakra with the Sharingan, and he had a curse mark active just like Susumu and Goda had—the difference was that Mamban's reached further than one side of the body, growing out like tendrils that encompassed his entire self and becoming nearly solid.

"Try to kill me, Kakashi Hatake—you'll find that I'm different from the others," Mamban said, getting up on wobbly feet and producing one more cough that echoed against the close wall of the inside of his mask. "Our mutual friend Susumu seems to fear you more than anything. I think he'd rather submit himself to _Orochimaru_ than face _you _again."

Kakashi narrowed his eye, but didn't leave his hunched pose. He was low to the ground, near to the layer of water that he had washed over the town's dusty ring. As Tenzo mentioned the night before, Kakashi knew that the acid of Mamban's variant of Boil Release was drastically slowed by the presence of moisture. "One of your goons, Goda, told me about you," Kakashi spoke, the gentle lapping of water at his ankles filling the area with a serene, otherworldly calm. Meanwhile, Tenzo was using his wood style to gather up the aimless zombies a few dozen paces away. Kakashi had himself positioned between them and Mamban, serving as a barrier. "I know that you want my Sharingan, but let me make it clear—this eye is not yours to take. It belongs to a dear friend."

"Ah, yes, I know about Obito Uchiha. The story of his heroism is told in many circles among the Leaf...especially those of us who survived the Third War intact." Mamban spoke calmly, though there were visible twitches in his body as he stood himself up. "I've lost many of my friends today...I lost them to _you,_ in fact. How will you mend that damage? How will you make peace between the two of us?"

Kakashi shook his head, denying the idea. "The only peace you'll find is through unconditional surrender. I know that I speak for the Hokage and for _all_ of the Leaf when I say that your actions are beyond redemption..." he drifted off in thought. An image of Naruto flashed into his thoughts. _Maybe there's __**someone**__ who could forgive him...but it isn't me._

Mamban chuckled looking down to his sleeves. They were frayed and tattered by his ride through the sharp, splintery fragments of the ruined building. He brought his hands up and gripped the cloth, ripping the robed sleeves down from the elbow, tossing the ruined fabric aside from both arms. The tatters would only have gotten in the way of his movements from that point forward. His arms were dark with the telltale symbols of the curse mark, licking like flames across his browned flesh. The tone was unnatural; his skin had once been similar in shade to Kakashi's, but over time and with abuse of his curse, he was becoming irreversibly corrupted. "Will you kill me, then?" Mamban asked to break up the staring contest.

Through his Sharingan, Kakashi saw the extent of that corruption. Mamban's heart was beating with a black taint, as if it were being strangled by something far more imposing than mere chakra. The dangerous power looked ready to squeeze around his blood-pumping organ and stop it forever. "You're killing _yourself_ as we speak," Kakashi answered after a long pause. "Don't you know the risks of the mark you bear?"

Mamban laughed crazily, clutching his gut with both gloved hands and bending forward. The topheavy nature of his mask made him look like he was going to roll forward. At the end of his outburst, he stood slowly, whispering. "A shinobi lives on borrowed time regardless of the choices one happens to make. My life should have ended more than a decade ago, just as Susumu's should have, as Goda's, Seshu's, and Cassy's should have. We've all been wandering this earth as specters, looking for a purpose. We chose the only purpose that made sense—revenge. We _all_ want to avenge ourselves and one another against your people."

"Susumu told me about your experiences during the war. He told me things about his team, and about yours—there weren't any women on either one. Who's Cassy? Where did she come from?" Kakashi asked, still watching Mamban. The latter was likely stalling for the water level to go down. The dry dirt was seeping it up rather quickly, but Kakashi was still slightly winded from his earlier fight and couldn't justify rushing in against an unknown opponent. Though his acid was accounted for, there were untold possibilities lurking beneath that mask.

Mamban answered the questions after a time of clenching his fists tightly together and keeping his expression concealed. "Cassy was never a soldier for the Leaf. Of the children who survived the starvation long enough to be taken by Orochimaru, Cassy is the only one of them who survived even further, long enough to see the light of day again."

"Do you think she's alive, Mamban? Do you think your ambitions were worth her life, and worth the lives of the others?" Kakashi clenched his fist as well, hanging at his side while the other clutched a ready kunai.

"I think they've all died, Kakashi. I think that I'm the only one left." Mamban answered honestly, tilting a hand and shrugging one shoulder. "You spared those girls from my wrath, and it's a good thing you did...I intended to pinch their heads right off," he said, pressing his thumb and forefinger together. "It would have been a mistake!" he spoke more loudly. "I want to keep them as trophies to...replace the dearly departed."

"They're so easily replaced, then?" Kakashi asked, trying to gauge his opponent. So far, Mamban felt the same as Susumu; insane, but intelligent, with ambitions driving them to the point of being foolish. However, Susumu had at least shown some level of compassion for his own people. Mamban seemed to do little more than bat a hidden eye with the news of his slain companions. "Were Goda and Seshu members of your original team?"

Mamban's headdress nodded succinctly. "It's true, they were. Every member of Susumu's team, and all but one of the children from the schoolhouse were killed during the experiments. A soldier of mine was taken with them, too." The man in the black robe, now sans-sleeves from the elbows down, began to wiggle about on his feet, sashaying around and twirling in place. "It's all so tragic, these lives of ours. Haven't you always wished for it to end?"

Kakashi nodded once. "A long time ago, I wondered if death might have been easier than living. At the time, I thought it would be less painful than carrying the burden of my losses...but we move on, Mamban. We become better than we used to be; we find new friends, new family. We find a new reason to fight. I think Susumu still has hope, but you? I think that for the sake of my village, and for all of the people you've killed or enslaved, you need to be put down for good."

"You've waited all this time already. Surely you've got some idea on how you'd like to kill me. A kunai through the throat, a stab to the heart with your infamous Lightning Blade? Maybe you'd like to use the technique that terrified my dear friend Minoru?" Mamban brought his hands together, then dropped a blob of green acid into the water at his feet. Though it was diluted, the aroma of acid still overwhelmed Kakashi's keen sense of smell, alerting him to a change in the atmosphere.

Mamban was trying to use a genjutsu, but Kakashi was wise to his game. Without ceremony, the silver-haired ninja broke himself free of its influence and rushed in to fight without a word. He skipped across the surface of the shallow water, not making a sound as he moved but leaving deep ripples behind every step.

Mamban had expected to find a dazed and confused opponent on the other end of his vision, but what he actually saw was Kakashi's kunai tucked beneath the lower reaches of his opponent's red mask, pressed hard against his throat. It was jammed firmly against his skin and it would have been a quick, painless killing blow if not for the toughness of his cursed flesh. An impulsive gasp of surprise escaped Mamban's mouth as he took two, then three steps back, leaping high and away from his place at the end of Kakashi's mercy and perching himself on the center rock of the village.

Kakashi brought his kunai back down to his hip, deciding not to follow Mamban's retreat. He felt like he had the upper hand, but he . "Did you think a genjutsu of that level would be enough to deter me, Mamban? If you underestimate your opponent, you'll die rather quickly."

Mamban put a hand to his throat, rubbing along the point of contact. He felt himself gulp, genuinely feeling a sense of fear. Perhaps Susumu wasn't as spineless as he was led to believe. Kakashi truly _was_ as dangerous as the Hyuga had suggested. "Your reputation is well earned, Kakashi, but you shouldn't underestimate _me, _either." Mamban began to bring his arms out wide, taking in a deep breath.

"I've heard about your strength, and it's impressive...but don't expect to take me by surprise. I'm not like anyone you've ever fought before." Kakashi may have sounded boastful, but what he said was clearly true—Mamban could feel the pressure of Kakashi's stare even from atop his perch. Susumu, as well, had been at a severe disadvantage in battle with the copy ninja. The only thing that saved him was the all-metal framing of his chamber. Without such an environmental advantage, Kakashi would have _easily_ overcome his abilities, and even then, the results could hardly even be called a _draw_.

"Then I'll take pride in adding you to my collection!" Mamban shouted down from atop the monolith, covered in etches and signatures. It was centuries old and predated the settlement that surrounded it. Mamban seemed intent on making a point of that. "I'll rip you down and build you back up, just the same as this entire village!" He began to spin on one foot, arms spread out and beginning to spray thick acid in every direction. Tenzo was in the line of fire, but he was paying attention and brought a section of the lingering water up as a flowing wall to bat down the thick green substance, preserving the lives of the controlled townsfolk, as well as Rika and Akemi's unconscious bodies as they both floated about.

Kakashi, too, managed to bring a barrier of water up in time to squelch Mamban's attempt, but it seemed half-hearted—in fact, the snake was aiming his attack too high and too far. Kakashi realized a bit late that his opponent was targeting the buildings themselves, dousing them with punishment for being out of his reach. He had probably given up on defeating Kakashi fairly already and took to being a sore loser, melting down the playground so that none of the other kids could have their turn.

The massive waves of dissolving acid were unable to reach Kakashi, Tenzo, or the others, but many of the structures that had been built decades if not centuries before that day were turned to vapor in seconds. Kakashi brought as much water as he could to the aid of the village, but he could only protect the inn, the hospital, and the buildings that immediately flanked them both. The blacksmith and a pair of food storehouses were preserved, almost entirely by accident. By a stroke of good luck, or perhaps of careful planning, Mamban had emptied out each and every building and flooded the town's population into the streets—Tenzo had accounted for all of them while Kakashi and Mamban had their skirmish.

As the town became more the size of a very small outpost, Kakashi grew angrier. "What was the point of that?" he demanded, pointing his finger to Mamban and opening his eye wider. Without waiting for an answer, his masked expression turned sour. "You've sealed your fate..." Kakashi added, his right hand spreading its fingers and charging a Lightning Blade while the other held his kunai, charging it dangerously with the same electricity. It wasn't white like most lightning techniques, but a focused, deadly blue that transcended the power of all but the most potent wielders.

Mamban finished his twirl, then took a bow. "Have I made you angry, Kakashi? Take it out on me...do your absolute worst..." he held his arms out, and Kakashi complied with the request, running to close the distance and climbing the side of the monolith with haste. Reaching his Lightning Blade out to strike toward Mamban, he was intercepted by a blur of black motion, two separate figures trying to get in his way. Kakashi saw them with his Sharingan and diverted his strike with just enough speed to avoid piercing through both of them and sliding through Mamban's heart as well. He had a momentary flashback of his fight with Zabuza—he didn't want a repeat of such a thing, regardless of who Mamban's puppets really were.

Kakashi didn't recognize their faces, but he could see that they were unmasked and horribly scarred by what was probably acid—a male and a female. They dressed like members of Root, or the Anbu, but they were young and emotionless. He supposed that they were puppets like the rest. Instead of killing them both, he disengaged from Mamban and called him a coward before landing on both feet against the water. All around him, melted buildings still smoldered with heat and smelled of corrosion. In front of him, innocent bodies were used as a shield. He was beginning to hate Mamban on a personal level.

The two interlopers were standing on either side of Mamban, and he hid behind them with a joyful chuckle. "I never would have suspected the mighty Kakashi Hatake, the Sharingan Legend, the friend-killer, the cold-blooded assassin, to have such a squeamish heart when it comes to murder." Mamban lashed his hand back, ready to douse one of his two saviors with acid, but a beam of wood struck him from behind and hurtled him off of his perch to land face-first into the water below with a shallow splash.

Tenzo had finished corralling the zombie-folk and turned his attention to Mamban, jumping to Kakashi's side with his hands clasped together, springing more wood out from beneath his opponent's landing to begin wrapping him up. "Sorry that took so long, Kakashi. I'm running a bit slow since fighting with Seshu...this is a good warm-up, though."

Mamban concentrated hard, putting all of his strength into his muscles and focusing the power of his curse mark to drive his arms through the binding wood, shattering its wet mess into shards and scrambling to his feet, disoriented. He had already tried to melt through the wood with his acid, but it was too wet and too full of life—he had effectively been countered by the ingenuity of his opponents, but he wasn't ready to give up. His demeanor was always a bit cracked, but he started to ramble insanely. "You'll pay for the pain you caused her...you'll all die...I'll have your eye, I'll have your wood style, I'll have your women, your children...it'll all belong to me, oh puppets of the Leaf!" He raised both arms up, then clapped his hands together and strung out a technique. _**"Water Style: Multiple Acid Prison Jutsu!"**_

Kakashi raised his hands to try to copy a water-style version of the technique before Mamban could trigger it, but it ultimately required too much chakra and refused to activate from his reserves. His fight with Goda and his escape from the ice dome had drained him just a bit too much before he came to fight the main attraction. Mamban's curse seal fueled his own technique, and Kakashi could see that the mark's opacity was spreading further every time the insane fool drew from it. The water that Kakashi had laid out was laced with the melting potency of Mamban's acid, and while it was no longer strong enough to devour flesh, its presence—however diluted—allowed the ex-Root member to manipulate the waves into prisons that engulfed Kakashi and Tenzo, as well as the unconscious Akemi and Rika.

_Damn it, _Kakashi thought as he was captured. He had tried to jump away, but his attempt to counter the attack had cost him valuable seconds that slowed him down. Tenzo was similarly slowed, still trying to regain his full functionality after being nearly frozen to the core.

Mamban exhaled loudly after exerting so much chakra, shaking his mask from side to side and stumbling forward to approach Kakashi's captured self. The acid prison was slowly chewing on his clothing, but his skin was unharmed. It wasn't strong enough to be a finishing blow, and it would have taken too long to try to drown experienced ninjas. Mamban chuckled, wobbling comically as he made his way toward his target. "Ahh, so here we are...Kakashi Hatake and Tenzo, both helpless before me! How delightful," he slurred, putting his hand to the rim of Kakashi's prison and sliding his fingers in.

Kakashi tried to move, but the pressure inside the sphere was too powerful for him to do anything meaningful. _I had been hoping to avoid this, _he thought to himself, then closed his eye and opened it again. The three dots whirled together and became the jagged, three-armed shuriken of his Mangekyo. Each colored segment shimmered like individual pieces of stained glass, glowing beneath the green-hued water and piercing the dense fluid.

"I'll have your eye, now," Mamban said as his sleeveless arm sunk deep into the water, getting quite near to Kakashi's Sharingan.

Having finished gathering chakra, Kakashi engaged his most powerful technique. _**Kamui! **_A black hole ripped open in space before Kakashi's eye, and the prison that encompassed his whole body was abruptly sucked into the void, freeing the Jonin from its clutches and surprising Mamban beyond belief. He tried to escape, tried to step back, but he was caught within the suction. His hand began to twist out of shape in front of Kakashi's gaze, and he could feel the bones snapping from the distortion. Still, when he realized that escape was not an option, he instead pushed _toward_ his prize—his hand was only an inch from the glowing red trophy he so desperately desired.

_**"I will have it!" **_Mamban screamed deliriously, and as he kept pushing, kept prying, kept trying to overcome the unfathomably powerful tug of Kamui, his mask was sucked right off of his face and into the void. His expression was crazed and his visage was nigh-inhuman, with cracked skin and eyes that were discolored by a sickening red and yellow haze surrounding each pupil, and sclera that were a light tinge of green. His lips resembled those of a burn victim, coagulated and uneven, and his skin was mottled gray from forehead to neck. Though as a young soldier beside Susumu, his face was round and pie-like, its structure was skeletal and washed out in his more recent years. By some miracle, he had retained all of his teeth, and they were each shown in his broad, maniacal grin. He tried to grab Kakashi's eye, but it was no use—the void of Kamui was pulling him in.

Just as Mamban was nearly lost entirely to the suction, he was rather abruptly yanked out of harm's way, though not entirely—he left a piece of himself behind when he was torn back and quickly ripped out of the point of no return. He was still howling his anger as he flew off into the distance, cursing Kakashi's name and then disappearing behind the tree line. The prison that captured Tenzo, as well as the others, burst into uselessness once the creator was far enough away, and the wood user took a deep breath, turning to Kakashi.

"Shouldn't we try to follow him?" Tenzo panted, clutching his chest and heaving a sigh before looking toward Akemi, Rika, and the villagers he had confined into a rudimentary wooden cage. All around him, he saw carnage, but at least there had been no obvious deaths. The two odd robed figures—Mako and Fiona—were left behind by Mamban's crazed attempts to grab at the Sharingan, and they had fallen unconscious just as the prisons were dispelled.

Kakashi's answer was to fall onto his knees, exhausted. "I can't follow him like this...I've used my eye too much since last night. I need some time to rest..."

Tenzo sighed, looking around as he realized that there was little to be done. He knew he wouldn't be much use in his condition, either, and at the speed of Mamban's escape he was probably quite far away by then. They could track him down at their leisure, later. "He did a real number on this place, didn't he?" Tenzo mused, noting the destruction. By divine fortune, the two of them had managed to spare a few important buildings; the inn was large enough to host the whole population if need be, and of course the hospital was the highest of necessities after such a battle, but many of the other buildings were unfortunately expendable by comparison.

"Only buildings," Kakashi said, heaving out a breath as he clutched the socket around his eye. "The people are with us, still...and I think that I can help them out of their stupor."

Tenzo crossed his arms, nodding and closing his eyes. "I figured we could. I caught a glimpse of a few curse marks on some of them when I was wrangling them up—you can seal them away, right?"

Kakashi nodded. "I can, but in this condition, it's going to take me a while to fix everybody. Do you think you can put up a more permanent holding cell for them in the mean time?"

Tenzo hummed in confirmation, looking to the haphazard cage he had built to hold them on the fly. It was pretty rickety, given how hastily he had slapped it together. It would hold for some time, but not forever. "I'll get started on it right away...then maybe I can see what we can do about all those lost homes and businesses."

Kakashi shook his head. "That's not important, yet. We'll deal with the structural damage when we've finished dealing with Mamban, Minoru, and the Truth Village...we need to come to some kind of conclusion to this situation. Mamban and Minoru have both proven too dangerous to be allowed to run amok in the Land of Fire. I'll send Pakkun to Lady Tsunade with a request for reinforcements—we need to take this fight to them, in force, or else we'll be at the mercy of another attack."

Tenzo nodded. "Good idea. Surely the Hokage will be able to find some extra resources for us when we tell her of the emergency we're facing," Tenzo speculated as he looked up to the sky. It wasn't even past noon, yet. There was still plenty of time for the day to get worse. "It's been an eventful twenty-four hours, hasn't it...?"

"It sure has," Kakashi sighed, rolling onto his back. The water had almost all been soaked into the ground, but his vest and pants still got muddied by the cool earth. "If you think you've got the strength, somebody should go see what happened to Kaine...I think he may have missed a spot..."

Tenzo nodded, departing in the direction of the earlier lightning explosion. Kakashi had caught a brief glimpse of how Mamban escaped, although he wasn't entirely sure what to make of it at first. Rather than a jump, as it initially appeared, the deranged slave-master actually had outside help in wresting himself free from the pull of Kamui. The mysterious aid was clearly visible through the Sharingan—just for a moment—as blue strands of lightly-colored chakra.

Kakashi recognized them as the same chakra strings that were often utilized by shinobi puppeteers.

* * *

**That's the end of the major fights, for the time being. Let me know what you think of everything! Thank you very much for reading, and I look forward to posting the next chapter soon! **


	29. Perfect Loyalty

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Tenzo found something he didn't want to find. Rather, he_ didn't_ find something that he _did_ want to find. Once he located Kaine and Makoto, one passed out and the other effectively restrained by the earth, he searched for the body of their opponent. He found nothing, though there was a sun-burst pattern of charred grass and wood in a circle surrounding two pristine, preserved footprints. Kakashi was right—Kaine had evidently missed a spot.

What was even more troubling was what he didn't find at the site of his own battle. Seshu and Goda's bodies were missing from where they had fallen, and Tenzo felt a momentary cringe of panic. Had they survived? No, he decided that it wasn't possible—a stab through the heart and an exploded torso weren't wounds that could simply be shrugged off. Still, he wondered what was to become of his and Kakashi's hard-fought 'victory'. The town was mostly destroyed, its occupants taken under control, and their enemies entirely absent—dead or not. Try as he might, Tenzo had a very difficult time in finding reasons to call it a successful day.

The people of Monolith Point had fortunately survived, and after bringing Kaine and Makoto back to town, Tenzo constructed a thicker, more enduring box for them all to stew within while Kakashi built up his energy again. Kaine was dumped into a bed at the inn to recover, his injuries non-threatening but exhausting. The pair of cloaked figures who Mamban had brought with him were not the same as the townsfolk—while the civilians were still groaning and gnawing at the wooden confinement, the scarred couple had dropped unconscious as soon as Mamban's will was absent from their vicinity. Unconscious, yes, but still breathing.

Kakashi had already put himself to the task of sealing away the various curse marks that took over the minds of Makoto, her parents, and the others, all at the expense of his personal health. He sealed the marks on the children, first, then worked upward in age so that Makoto's burden—placed on her lower back, just over her spine—was prioritized somewhere near the middle. Unfortunately, while sealing the mark was an adequate measure to knock them out of Mamban's control, it didn't immediately wake any of them up from a sudden state of unconsciousness. There were also injuries to consider: although Rika, Tenzo, and Akemi had each gone out of their way to avoid injuring the innocent, unwitting people, there were bumps, bruises, and fractures by the dozen.

It was going to be a long road of recovery for Monolith Point, but it had already begun the trek thanks to the diligent ninja pair from the Leaf.

* * *

He had been at the very top of the insurmountable ladder, his hand reaching forward to grasp the final rope that would allow him to pull himself to the very apex of achievement. He was a step away from power, a mere tongue's length from achieving his final goal. Before then, he had never stopped to dwell on the amount of time that had passed since he last felt the wind flying over his face, its neutral howl tickling the scars of his skin and lips with perfectly spread stings and pinches. In a state of half-life, he was kept alert by the sensations as they ate at him, as they peeled back his fragile surface and gave breath to the layers beneath. He gasped for air, but his rebellious lungs fought to remain empty, crushing against his ribs as they shriveled and cracked. The world had become something other than itself; the air became his enemy and the empty trees were demons on the edge of his vision.

He was unable to speak, his throat too dry and ruined by his screaming rage. He had gazed into hell, he had seen it first hand—and he wanted to go there again for the sake of obtaining the ultimate legacy. He wanted not only to live, but to thrive—he would rather have been ripped asunder than to have given up halfway through his most crucial moment of victory. He was shorn away from his glorious moment by the unfounded concerns of his dear assistant, and he had been carried—half conscious—to their mutually shared hideout. The dark, cold air was a soothing reprieve from the harshly bright sunlight and merciless wind. In the emptiness, he could finally breathe again.

The cave was deep and narrow, leading over treacherous gaps and under spiked ceilings. An inexperienced spelunker could find a dozen and a half ways to die along the straight-carved path, but a ninja with knowledge of the layout could easily slither in, over and under, to find the expansive gullet of the unliving beast. Within that enormous hollow, Mamban's outpost was meticulously set up, arranged not by himself, but by Cassy and her obsessive eye for perfection.

Mamban spoke without his mask at last, finally able to get a hold of his own consciousness after it tried so hard to escape him forever. "You took it away from me," he murmured in the cave, echoes sliding between stalactites that loomed ominously above like daggers ready to fall upon the unworthy. "I'm tempted to brand you a traitor..." Mamban spoke with venom as he was on his back, laid out gingerly across a table carved from the cave-bed itself. All of the seating, desks, tables and stairs were built of stone, the whole level of the floor lowered by one story to produce enough free-standing material. There were a dozen slabs for medicinal and experimentation purposes, one of which Mamban occupied limply.

Standing over him from beside his table was the body of his closest comrade, covered in black-charred clothing and smelling like carbon and sulphur. There were still little tingles of smoke leaking up from her robe as she answered Mamban's accusation. "I did what I had to do to preserve your legacy, Master Mamban," she said, her voice as husky and sultry as ever. "They're too strong for you; too strong for any of us..." Cassy looked with her soot-covered mask toward another two tables. Goda and Seshu were laid out upon them, lifeless and cold. Goda's hand was still roughly buried in his own chest; Cassy had been unable to force it out without damaging the arm. She needed a surgical setting, which she found in their headquarters.

"My legacy means nothing without that Sharingan," Mamban said, trying to stand but having difficulty even bending at the waist to sit up. Cassy's palm was planted to his chest, gently but assertively nudging him onto his back.

"You used a lot of power; how long did you have your mark active this time?" Cassy asked, apprehensive. Although one of Mamban's arms was torn away just below the elbow, she could see that the other one was a shade darker than she remembered. His face had always been unsightly to the average eye, but she could spot individual flakes that had since cracked away and fallen to nothing. Her master was turning to ash before her very eyes, slowly but inevitably. She couldn't stop it from happening to him.

"I heard your scream," Mamban struggled to say, his lungs wanting to give up and become dirt within his body. He tried with a grunting wince to rescind the extension of his curse mark, but he couldn't do it. It was a permanent fixture along his network, as present as his veins and his own chakra points. "I heard your _death_, and I sought swift revenge." He tried to sit up again, and this time he was successful. Cassy didn't try to stop him. "How is it that you're alive?"

Cassy shrugged her shoulder, taking a step back from her ascending master and humming sweetly. "Oh, this?" she sassily pointed out the falling crumbles of her ruined garment. In small places, one could see through the material and to the skin beneath. She was dark of tone, but not like Mamban—it was a natural caramel color, bestowed by birth and not the sun or a curse. "The Hamasaki kid is strong, but he's not as strong as he thinks he is. His Storm Release caught me by surprise, sure, but he dumped everything he had into its blast and couldn't quite finish me off. He was close—_real_ close." She pinched her thumb and forefinger together to signify the amount of life she had left. "I couldn't see, couldn't move, couldn't even _think_ for a few minutes. When I got my senses back, he was out cold."

Mamban nodded, his destroyed lips curling into a sinister grin. "So you finished him off?"

Cassy cleared her throat, tucking her hand against the closed mouth of her now-blackened snake mask. "No, not really. I kept him and his little girlfriend alive," she confessed, turned away from her master. She felt his hand—his left hand, since the right was gone forever—clasp around her wrist and tenderly tug her toward facing him again. He was silent, so Cassy continued: "I figured one of us could get some use out of him, some day, some way. It'd be a terrible waste to just kill a rogue user of Storm Release. You know I don't like breaking my toys on the first play date, right?"

"So...where is he, then?" Mamban asked, his discolored eyes turned toward the woman's unmoving mask. Beneath it, she was sweating a bit. She felt his disapproval even though his face was sagging and neutral.

"I left him behind to go get you and the other two," she said, reaching her hand over to rest on top of Mamban's own affectionately, holding him to her wrist. He stood up in front of her, significantly taller than she was and looming high. He took his grip gently away from her wrist, wrapping his arm around her lower back and pulling her into a tight embrace. Cassy gasped softly as she was handled, feeling weak under Mamban's twisted affections. He brought his cauterized arm-stump up to the base of her chin to nudge the angle of her masked face up toward his.

Bending at the knees, Mamban's chapped, inhuman mouth found the slit in Cassy's mask that allowed her to easily breath, and he pressed a sinister kiss to its surface. Cassy all but melted beneath the closeness, but her shivering pleasure turned abruptly into fear as her mask literally did melt off of the front of her face, falling as a bubbling sludge down to the floor, eating into the solid stone of the cave. Her face was left behind, staring in stunned shock with her golden eyes and naturally reddened lips. Her purely black hair was kept short, bangs dangling over her forehead and just barely reaching past her eyebrows. By some miracle, all the luscious locks had stayed in place despite the searing, explosive power of Kaine's overwhelming attack.

Cassy stuttered, looking down to the ground at her destroyed mask, then back to Mamban's face, lips still puckered as he kissed the air mockingly. He spoke with a menacing air. "You tore me away from having Kakashi's eye, you failed to retrieve our Storm Release wielder, and what you have to show me _instead_ are the lifeless bodies of two of my closest friends?"

Just like Mamban, Cassy had loved her mask—it gave her a place to hide, even though her deformities were beneath the skin and not on the surface. In appearance, she was a truly stunning kind of gorgeous, with perfectly symmetrical features. She was blessed with lush lips and bold eyes. Her nose was neither too big, nor too small, with a pleasantly sloped curve into a sharp tip. Her face was almost triangular, cheekbones visible in front of her ears in the slightest way. Cassy giggled nervously, looking under the crook of Mamban's arm to look toward Goda and Seshu. "Well, I...yes?" she answered, her face unused to being seen. She tried to smile, but it looked like a snake's open mouth, too wide and too deadly.

Mamban was the absolute contrast to her immaculate appearance; scarred, ruined, unpleasantly discolored. They averaged together into a morbidly intriguing couple. Mamban mulled over her response, lips still dripping with acid from the kiss that destroyed her mask. She looked vulnerable, and certainly felt that way as he gazed upon her, running his hand thoughtfully from her backside to the top of her shoulder and back down again. "Excellent work," Mamban concluded, leaning down to kiss her directly on the lips. Cassy tensed, wondering if he had finally lost his mind and decided that she was no longer needed. Instead of tasting acid and feeling pain, she was allowed to savor the soothing roughness of his mouth on hers, the warmth of his arm tucking her into a deeper intimacy and bending her slightly backward at the waist. She couldn't contain the sigh of relief and satisfaction that he brought out of her. Giving in to his carefully budgeted love, Cassy's eyes closed and her arms reached up to wrap around his shoulders and neck.

After a time, Mamban pulled back from her and took his arm free of her body, turning on a dime to face the lifeless forms of his former team. "Poor, poor Goda...it looks like he suffered. Seshu, on the other hand, looks like he's sleeping." Mamban narrated as he stepped closer to them both, standing between their matching tables and setting a hand on each of their shoulders. Goda's right arm was capped by his especially-precious right shoulder, which was decorated by the source of his curse mark—the font of his strength, and of his explosive punches. Mamban looked to his own ruined arm, trying to flex his fingers—he could feel the limb there, still. It was a phantom, and the sensation was already driving him more insane than he already knew he was.

"Cassy, my precious, most favored companion..." he addressed, looking to her with a devious smirk. "Come here, would you?" he beckoned her, lifting his right arm's stump and flexing his non-existent finger as if to curl it inward. Cassy obeyed the words, even if she didn't fully comprehend his odd gesture. She stood at his side, dutifully crossing her arms behind her back and looking up to him with her cruel grin.

"What's on your mind, master?" she asked him, head tilted languidly and her hips wagging gently. She was still on high after the elongated kiss they had shared. When she wasn't being directed to look elsewhere, she was allowing herself to be mesmerized by Mamban's terrifying bare face.

"Goda, rest his soul, has something I want..." he began, caressing his slain partner's shoulder, complete with its mark. "I'd like you to give it to me. The whole arm."

Cassy blinked. "Is that a good idea? We don't know if it will work that way..." she started, but trailed off when Mamban brought his left hand up to make a shushing gesture over his own lips.

"It's worth the effort," he told her. "Orochimaru's ultimate goal was to cultivate separate marks on numerous people, all on different body parts. The end result was going to be a combination of all of them into a single being. We've come this far on the merits of his research and experiments...should we shun them at this late hour?" Mamban didn't wait for Cassy's answer, clutching an unsheathed sword off of a nearby shelf, biting his teeth together and giving his own arm a slice right at the shoulder joint, dropping the half-gone limb to the floor with a wet thud.

Cassy sighed, looking huffy as her proverbial hand was forced, nodding begrudgingly. "Well, since you went and did that, you'll probably bleed to death if I don't do something about it..." She hated to see him destroy himself, but she couldn't fault the results he tended to get. Up until his battle with Kakashi, a true legend, the curse-improved Mamban was undefeated in combat.

Mamban winked, his eyelid fragile but sly as it plinked against its counterpart. "Good girl," he praised.

Cassy rolled her eyes at that, equal parts loving and hating Mamban for his manic methods. "Alright...but before you go lopping your left leg off too, let me check that Seshu's still in the condition to be used..." she murmured, looking at Mamban and teasingly throwing her own awkward wink toward her superior. She got on the side of Seshu's body, taking a close look at his wound. She dug her fingers into the gap in his chest between the ribs, searching for the through-line of the penetration. She blinked, narrowing her eyes and furrowing her brows with confusion. "He's full of ice," she said in befuddlement as her fingers emerged with a lining of bloody coldness.

Mamban nodded, his hand cupping the open wound a few inches beside his neck, blood oozing out with every beat of his exhausted heart. "Yes, my dear, he's always been full of _something,_" he played around with no sense of urgency.

Cassy shook her head. "No, I mean...he's _completely_ frozen inside. He hasn't even lost any blood through here..." she flexed her fingers at her side, forming a few precise strings of chakra which she used to probe along her partner's pierced heart. The blade had gone in clean and come out just the same. The organ was penetrated, but all the pieces were still there. With careful weaving, she threaded the gap closed over the course of a few tense minutes using her energy. Mamban stood there, unmoving as he watched. Although he wasn't the most hopeful of sorts, something of a nihilist in fact, he was still curious as to what his lover was on about.

"Come thaw him," Cassy requested, holding her strings in place with the pull of her chakra, using them as highly temporary stitches.

Mamban snickered, taking his bloody fist away from his nonexistent shoulder to allow his hand to heat up, using one half of the elements used to create his acid—fire licked at the edges of his fingers, and he reached those scalding-hot digits into the wound to first melt the ice, and second sear the string-work permanently together. "You're ever the hopeful, optimistic one, aren't—"

Before Mamban could finish his thought, Seshu's vacant eyes flicked open and his throat drew in a huge breath, inflating his lungs and returning some color to his icy flesh. The gasp was loud and desperate, as if he had been trying to breathe for hours but just barely unable to do it until that final culmination. His eyes bulged wide and their pristine emptiness was marred by red veins stretching from the corners, his lids puffy and red from the dryness of near-death. He woke up swinging, shouting. "I've got you now, you bastar—"

Seshu was about to knock Cassy in the mouth with a hard right swing of his fist, but he stopped short and looked at his hand, then his chest. He could feel the sting of burned flesh, could smell himself cooking. "You aren't Kinoe...I was dead, wasn't I?" he asked, flexing his hands, breathing as hard as he could. He was a man resurrected, and it felt a lot more sluggish than rejuvenating.

"Dead as could be," Mamban replied, nodding. Seshu had seen him without the mask before, but it still gave him a grimace as he saw the uncensored ugliness. Mamban caught the look, but he wasn't offended. He spoke with a tad of regret. "Goda, however, is quite a bit deader than that."

Seshu tsked, looking to the operating table on his other side. "I knew that was going to happen...he underestimated Kakashi Hatake and paid the price. What an idiot."

Cassy cleared her throat, raising a single finger. "Didn't you underestimate Kinoe and end up dead, too?"

Seshu sneered, looking to the younger woman with clenched teeth. "You could _say_ that, but I'm still _alive_," he growled out.

"How'd that happen, anyway?" Cassy asked, touching a condescending finger to the man's bright white nose.

Seshu crossed his eyes, too disoriented to retaliate against the poke. "Kinoe was quick, stuck his blade right through my heart when I tried to freeze him up. I couldn't devote enough chakra to freeze _him_, but I managed to finish my sign and freeze myself from the inside to stop the wound from becoming fatal. Though, staying alive longer than that kind of depended on your help, Cassy," he admitted, looking down to his repaired hole. "I doubt a typical surgeon would've been able to put me back together in time."

"You're lucky I survived, then," she chided, giving him a harsh punch to the back of the head. "Next time, don't come so close to dying in the first place. Mamban and I were already mourning the both of you."

Seshu rubbed the back of his head, even though he was still too numb from the freeze to feel the actual pain of impact. The throbbing at his chest would have been ludicrously intense if not for the icy anesthesia. He decided that it was best to keep himself on ice for a while, and laid himself back down on the cold cave table. "A shame about Goda, but he was always the weakest of us..."

Mamban shook his head, raising a finger. "No, not weak...merely unwilling to exert his gifts. I think a better word choice would be 'timid.' He refused to play by our rules, and Kakashi likely turned that hesitation against him."

"What happened to your arm...and your mask?" Seshu asked to Mamban, looking over the mangled man, then turning to Cassy. "And _your _mask? Did you at least grab _mine_ while you got me out of there?"

Cassy tucked her hand beneath the back of her head. "Not a lot of time to think about masks, I was still half-dead and Master Mamban was about to get sucked into some kind of demon vortex...so my priorities were skewed around."

Seshu sighed, closing his eyes and reaching his hands up to fold behind his head. It hurt to move, but he hated resting his head on flat stone. "Whatever, I probably shouldn't have taken it off anyway."

Mamban finally called attention back to his lingering desires. "Though I'm overjoyed that you weren't taken from us, Seshu, I have a great need for Cassy's expert services...do try to avoid distracting her while she fulfills the transplant."

Seshu perked an eye open. "Transplant? You mean Goda's arm?" He blinked, then looked urgently down to his left leg, feeling around with his hand, expecting to find a stump. He sighed with relief when he saw that it was still there. He also realized that he had no feeling whatsoever beneath the waist. He kind of hoped that it was a temporary thing. "Yeah alright, go for it. I'm sure he'd want you to have it."

Mamban and Cassy both nodded, going in tandem to the deceased man who had once worn a yellow mask. The leader spoke up, running his good hand across Goda's forehead. "I'll carry your spirit into battle, old friend...the man who did this to you will pay, one way or another." Beside him, Cassy was already making preparations, folding her puppet threads through the specially carved holes in a few select surgical tools, lacing them together and letting her threads serve as her own assistant.

"Alright, Master," she said. "Lie down and try not to feel the pain you're about to feel...and let's hope this even works. I don't think we can afford to lose you right now. You're the only one keeping Susumu from slaughtering all of our soldiers in his village."

"He's right to fear me," Mamban said with self-satisfaction. "After this successful operation, I will go to see what he thinks of it all."

Seshu spoke, one eye still perked open. "You might want to put another mask on. I doubt if Susumu's people are ready to see you for what you really are."

Mamban chuckled, wincing from the agony as Cassy began to tool around with his flesh, preparing his joint, veins, and nerves to be merged with the cursed limb quickly amputated off of Goda's body. She carved away the ribs and muscle that held the dead man's hand in place, delicately handling the intact arm and nursing it with her hovering strings, laying it into place against Mamban's crumbling husk. With luck, the relatively fresh limb replacement would give his body some time, but Cassy knew better than to think that her master would have a long, full life ahead of him.

They had all been living on borrowed time since choosing to abandon the orders of Lord Danzo Shimura. Cassy thought for a moment that Goda was actually quite lucky that he wouldn't live to see it all come crashing down around them.

* * *

Tito had been doing as Medo asked of him, keeping an eye on every soldier that arrived in a mask and a robe. He wasn't very smart and didn't even know what he was supposed to be looking for, but he did his duty every time he went to the food stores for another meal. That was where he met everybody—all the residents of the village ate at different times, but Tito was almost always there, chowing down on another helping of the decadent dishes prepared for them. With an overflow of supplies from who-knew-where, some of the more enthusiastic members of the Truth Village were experimenting with cooking fresh recipes.

Filling a plate in front of Tito was an arrangement of sliced apples, strawberries, and bananas all lined with a crushed paste of almonds and cooked to a pleasant warmth. The fruits were made a bit mushy by the heat, and some had suggested that the texture was off-putting, but Tito was sure to eat any of the experiments that failed. A living garbage disposal. Medo appeared from around a corner, quickly hopping into the wooden stump that served as a chair across from Tito at the same table.

"See anything lately?" Medo asked, resting his elbow on the wooden surface in front of him.

"Nope, sorry Medo-sensei," Tito murmured between licks of his fingers. "They just kind of stand around."

Medo sighed, rubbing both of his cheeks with frustrated hands. "Yep, that's what I've seen, too. I know they're up to something, standing around like they're keeping watch on us."

"Aren't they supposed to be protecting us?" Tito questioned, looking to his recently-appointed teacher with inquisitive eyes.

"Maybe, but that's not what it feels like to me. It feels like we're being monitored, not protected. Just be careful around these mummies, got it?" Medo reached over the long table, patting Tito's muscular shoulder with one ounce of approval. "If things get out of hand, we're going to need your help."

As Tito nodded to Medo's encouragement, Minoru approached the pair, a clone that was mistaken for the real thing as always. "Be careful with what you say, good Medo," he said in his calming tone, arms crossed over his torso in a state of perpetual zen. "They do not act on their senses, but they do possess ears."

Medo perked a brow. "What, I can't even be suspicious?"

Minoru shook his head, the mask that covered his eyes staying firmly planted over his features. "Suspicions are quite necessary, but please do your best not to vocalize them. If you have concerns, you should come to see me in my chambers rather than spread gossip among the students."

Tito seemed entirely oblivious to being mentioned, still hammering down an assortment of mushy fruit. Minoru couldn't help but smile—a peaceful mind like Tito's was the ideal that he had always wanted for everybody. No worries, no cares in the world. Minoru's only regret was that to achieve his dream, many others would have to die to make room. He could not trust the world to keep their hands out of the tranquility, and so he would need to strike first and cut those hands off. Perhaps not total annihilation, but a powerful message.

"Sorry, Master Minoru," Medo grumbled, picking up a long piece of jerky that probably came off the hip of a deer. "I'll try to keep the kids uninformed." There was a bit of snark in that reply, but its disobedience was insincere—Medo was fully loyal, and Susumu's eyes could read it in his body language, both inside and out.

Minoru spoke with a soft hum. "I appreciate your concerns, but I have everything under control. With luck, this occupation will not last much longer."

Medo chuckled openly, tsking. "Now who's forgetting to be careful what he says?"

Minoru's face was flat and expressionless, then, changing the subject. "Tests are coming up," he declared as something of a warning. "I do hope your students have been prepared adequately for what's around the corner."

Medo nodded. "Yeah, all but this guy here," he said with a casual point of his thumb toward Tito. "I'm gonna suggest that you let him sit it out."

Minoru shook his head. "We have no use for dead weight anymore, Medo. We aren't trying to gain numbers for the sake of numbers. We're weeding out the weakness, trimming the fat, becoming efficient. If he is unprepared, he will die."

Tito, still oblivious, was starting on a fresh plate. Medo sighed, cupping his hands over his face with exasperation. "What does that really prove, though? I'm telling you right now that he's got no worth as a shinobi. If anything, send him back home to wherever he came from. There's no sense even trying to test somebody against him, because they'll crush him and it won't prove that they're strong."

Minoru nodded. "Your concerns are noted...and now I have a test in mind for the both of you."

Medo tilted his head. "Both of us? I don't think I like the sound of that."

"Are you questioning my judgement?" Minoru asked, calm and direct as always. It was the ease of his speech that made the confrontation so spine-tingling for Medo. The older teacher had no idea how Tito could keep stuffing his face through it all; the young-adult who acted like a kid must have been hard of hearing.

"I'd never question you, Master Minoru, just...I want to make sure that Tito isn't needlessly thrown out to be slaughtered." Medo said as he chewed a strip off the long, dry meat in his left hand. "He doesn't even know his affinity, yet."

Minoru tsked. "That is quite the shame, Medo. Come with me, and bring him along. I've decided to test you both immediately."

Medo blinked, finishing his jerky with a single, long bite, coiling the flexible rope up like a snake on his tongue. He snapped his fingers in front of Tito's face, getting his attention. Tito was ripped out of a feeding frenzy, a dribble of strawberry juice trickling down his chiseled chin. How he ate so much and stayed so muscular was a perpetual mystery to everybody he knew. "Wha's up sensei?" the newbie asked, having entirely missed the discussion about his very fate.

"Come on, kid, we've gotta appease the overlord." Medo snapped his fingers again, standing up and jogging to follow Minoru as the latter began to walk off, assuming he would be obeyed. Tito reluctantly stood up to follow as well, carrying his newest, fullest bowl along with him.

They arrived on the training field an hour before noon, giving them time before the village-wide lessons began. Mamban's faceless, wordless soldiers lined the perimeter, but made no action to stop the three from passing toward the large, rectangular battle arena near the center of the layout. "Enter," Minoru instructed, waving a hand toward the field. Medo and Tito looked to one another, then to Minoru, and both nodded obediently before taking their places on the two chalky lines drawn into the sandy ground.

Minoru folded his hands together, making a sign to erect a smaller, visible version of the barrier that surrounded the Truth. It formed on all sides and came together at the top as a flat ceiling, confining master and student into a cube as Minoru watched from the outside. He spoke loudly and clearly, though he maintained his typical flat tone. "Medo—your test is to kill Tito."

Tito blinked, looking toward Minoru and then toward his sensei. "He's not serious, is he?"

"I really _doubt_ he's serious," Medo said, looking to Minoru with a curved eyebrow.

Without hesitation, Minoru addressed their concerns. "I'm quite serious. Medo, you are to kill Tito _immediately_."

Medo looked to Minoru for another moment, considering a myriad of protests. He wanted to disobey the order, but something inside of him told him to remain perfectly loyal. It was an itchy feeling under his chin, a slight tingle that danced over his scalp. A lot of little things all added together into one singular thought—_obey Master Minoru no matter what. _A long moment passed, Tito's face sweating and his jaw tight with worry.

Medo shrugged his shoulders and cracked his neck to loosen up—the manipulative poison lacing the food had at last resettled into his system. Although Medo himself was not aware of it, Minoru's test was a spur of the moment decision to establish that the loyalty had been artificially restored inside of all of his people. Medo had gone the longest of all of them without eating, and he had then been particularly vocal against the needless sacrifices.

Shoved into perfect loyalty by the undetectable poison in his system, Medo finally nodded once, ignoring Tito's fearful hands raised in his own defense. The young man with no confidence backed up—he was trying to escape, but the barrier stopped him at the border of the field. Medo spoke casually after spitting on the ground, suddenly having no regrets or misgivings. Minoru had not minced his words. "Sorry, kid. Orders are orders." Medo took a step forward...

…

…

…

"It's kind of a shame," Medo said with a quiet sigh toward Minoru, laying a rock out near the others in the semi-hidden grove nestled near the training field. "I was really starting to like that kid." He closed his eyes briefly, forming a symbol of respect with both of his hands after setting the stone down. "So that he'll always be remembered," Medo murmured with reverent ceremony, kneeling down in front of the naturally shaped rock and affectionately carving the name '_Tito_' upon its front face with the sharp point of his kunai.

"Always remembered," Minoru echoed gently from beside his kneeling subordinate, hands together in front of his chest. He was _very_ satisfied by the results of his impromptu test.

* * *

**Thanks for reading. The next chapter is coming soon. Leave a review if you want to, I love reading them all.**


	30. Harmless Secrets

**Fair warning, this gets a little bit _risque_ toward the end. (_Shipping intensifies_)**

* * *

_ He felt oppressive hunger again. Too, he felt his feet bare, his skin sliced, and his hair scorched onto his scalp by the licking flames around him. Another town, another group of lives squashed under the weight of war. His eyes were blurred by tears, but his throat was seized by a lack of water. Again, he wanted to give up. There was nothing in front of him but misery, nothing behind him but death. And in the present, he felt starvation and weakness. He looked to his hands, dark and bloody, and a single tear fell upon the skin to wash away a caked layer of filth. There was then a single spot of purity splashed across his entire self, but the falling soot quickly covered it once more. "Survive, Kaine," the constant, ambiguous voice murmured innocently into his ear. "You need to survive...Do it for __**me**__."_

Kaine awoke from his common nightmare as he had awoken a handful of times before: in a confused and hazy state of mind, sore and bedridden. He looked around to see a familiar room, not part of the hospital but part of the inn. Outside the window, the sky was dark but for the bright, nearly-full moon. He looked down the length of his arm, its gashes sewn up and layered with white bandages. He flexed his hand and felt fresh pain where he had been stabbed through the palm. The wound was still new, still leaking blood—he hadn't been out for very long compared to the last time. A day or two, by his guess. Before he could speak, his needs were anticipated and a full glass of water was tilted against his lips. He drank heavily, gasping through his nose as he chugged the liquid he hadn't yet realized he craved.

When he finished drinking, the generous hand pulled the cup away and set it with a clunk against the table at his bedside. He looked to that end table, and he saw resting upon it his abandoned headband. It was patiently waiting for him, an old friend who would always offer a helping hand no matter the direness of the situation. He reached for it, surprised to find that he could easily move. The cold stone felt strange against his warm skin, its rough surface scraping at his bandage and feeling quite abrasive. It wasn't like the smooth metal of Kakashi or Tenzo's forehead protectors.

With the headband in his hand, he gave another look around, spotting the person who had offered him the water. He expected a nurse, perhaps Akemi, but instead, he saw the hesitant face of Makoto. Her hands were crossed in her lap and her eyes were tilted downward, ashamed. Kaine tried to talk, but again he was intercepted when she spoke first: "I'm so sorry, Mister Kaine," she said, her voice a vacant whisper. "I wanted _so_ badly to warn you, to warn _all_ of you, but I couldn't remember what was going to happen until it was too late."

Though he was confused by her apology, he was far more surprised to see that Makoto had regained control of herself. He reached his hand out, dropping his headband carelessly on the floor while his fingers freed themselves to cup the base of Makoto's rounded cheek, brushing his thumb along her smooth face. "Don't apologize for a second," he said, as softly as he could. His throat was slick and hydrated, but he still had an edge in his voice. He was recalling the last things he remembered before falling into the black. "I should have stayed here, like you said you wanted me to do...maybe if I hadn't left, I could have stopped this from happening to you."

Makoto brought her hand up to cup over Kaine's own, holding him to her face and guiding his touch along the curve of her jaw, humming pleasantly and closing her eyes. "You're here _now_, though," she said through a warm breath. "Are...are you going to _stay_ here this time?"

Kaine closed his eyes, keeping his hand on her cheek and raising the other to brush over his forehead. He found more bandages blocking him from scratching an itch above his nose. He sighed, reaching his hand around from Makoto's cheek to her shoulder, giving a squeeze. It stung his palm to hold onto her, but it could never have been painless. She represented a difficult decision, but recent events had all but made the choice _for_ him.

"I can't promise that I'm going to live much longer," Kaine said after hesitating for more than a minute, dwelling on the ways he could word it. "I do want this; I know that I want a peaceful place to live..." he began, but Makoto whimpered inside her throat, cupping her mouth with a worried hand. Kaine soured, head turning slightly with concern. "What's wrong?"

Makoto took her hand off of his, bringing both of hers together in her lap. "There's not much left of this place right now, Kaine," she said, dropping the 'mister' once she felt forgiven. "I didn't see it happen, but Mister Tenzo told me all about it. That guy in the red mask who hurt us all...Mister Tenzo said that he destroyed most of the town."

Kaine lurched up, surprised to feel no pain in his midsection. His eyes split wide open and he turned his head, climbing out of bed and going to a nearby window. Silvery moonlight peered down upon the decay, highlighting the horrific, skeletal remains of a once-humble corner of the world. There was no ash, no smoke, no debris save for one building that had been blown apart by water rather than dissolved. The wood of handmade walls and the prideful glass of personalized windows had entirely ceased to be at the touch of Mamban's acidic release. Kaine saw the destruction and clenched both fists, forcing blood through the fresh bandage of his right hand. "How many died?" Kaine asked. "Where are Akemi and Rika? Your parents? What about Kakashi?"

Makoto was still in her chair, sitting calmly with her bare feet touching the ground just barely at the end of her short legs. "Everyone's alive, but not everyone's awake yet. Mister Kakashi told me that he knows how to seal the creepy little tattoos that were controlling us." Makoto stood up, turning around and quickly lifting the back of her shirt to show pale skin from the waist up to her shoulders. Kaine blushed slightly at the movement but quickly found the reason for it—she showed a black pattern along her spine, small and unassuming at its center. It seemed like a triad of snake fangs, bent and gushing with venom to form a circle. On the outside ridge of the fangs there was a larger, thicker layer of black that was a sequence of squiggly lines. Makoto's hand reached around her back, her stubby nails tracing the outline. "He told me that this line on the outside will keep it from leaking out."

Kaine snarled, but kept the noise subdued as he turned from the window and moved over to Makoto. He touched his finger to the seal, trying to calm his mind. Mamban had hurt Makoto, and judging from what she had said, he had hurt others as well. Kaine's digit glided easily along the tainted skin, and then traced the seal that had apparently been added by Kakashi. Kaine marked it down as yet another reason to owe the copy ninja one. "How many others did he take?"

Makoto bit her lower lip when Kaine's finger touched her, the skin still tender from Kakashi's sealing process but soothed by the rough, warm scrape of the other man. She leaned backward against his hand, dropping her shirt back down and pressing her shoulder blades to his rib cage, which was about as high as she could reach. "From the looks of it, he got everybody...I kind of remember when Mister Mamban showed up. Honestly, he was really nice, even though he was weird-looking. He had that big mask so I didn't get to see his face, but then he started getting closer to me..."

Kaine impulsively wrapped both arms around Makoto's waist when she leaned against him, and her weight felt pleasing and supple against him. He touched his mouth to the top of her head, nuzzling her hair with his bandaged nose. "How bad did it hurt?" he asked, cradling her in his personal protection. She fell half-limp against him, resting her arms on top of his and securing his grasp around her somewhat tubby waist.

"It didn't hurt...not really. I mean, it didn't hurt like a knife would hurt, or a rock. It was like I had a headache on my back and couldn't remember why, but then I couldn't _control_ myself. Even though I went to her on my own, I also picked up a knife and carried it out with me without even realizing it..." Makoto's lids were shut tight, her breaths getting slightly faster as she thought through the jumbled memories. "I wanted to talk to Aki, but then out of nowhere I _knew_ I wanted to hurt her...but that I also _didn't_ want to hurt her! I wanted to go back home, but I attacked her...and then you came. I couldn't control my body, or talk, or even breathe how I wanted to, but I could _see_ it...I could _hear_ it."

Kaine looked to his damaged hand as it caressed Makoto along the stomach, feeling how soft she was through the thin layer of her white shirt. She had seen everything, then...heard everything. She had witnessed him at his worst, and the thought was terrifying—he had been wanting to keep her ignorant to the extreme dangers of the world; oblivious to the horror of who he could become in a tense situation. He abruptly took his arms away from her and turned to cross them over his chest, rather suddenly not trusting himself to be near her. Makoto nearly fell over when he backed away, but she caught her balance and turned around with her hand raised, looking like she was ready to blurt an apology. "I'm sorry that you had to see that..." Kaine took the next words, trying to lessen the tension before she could speak to him. Makoto's hand fell short, dropping back to her hip and hanging limp.

"It was _scary_, Kaine," she said carefully, rubbing her hand across her wrist, a small comfort for herself. "I didn't want you to kill Aki. I tried to scream for you, to beg you to stop, but I couldn't open my mouth." She cleared her throat, then turned her head away from Kaine with her hand blocking her mouth. Her eyes were sparkling with crying shame. "Please don't hate me for saying this, but...I'm glad I was forced to stab you before you _really_ hurt her..."

Kaine chuckled, a smirk on the side of his mouth. He could feel stifling guilt in her confession, like she was saying something that she shouldn't have said. He was actually pleased to hear it. "I'm glad it turned out that way, too, Makoto," he said, admitting his regrets. "Some otherworldly impulse told me you needed me, so I ran in half-prepared and nearly killed my own _sister_ because I was pissed off by what I saw. Tell me honestly: what kind of _monster_ does that make me?" He looked to his hand again, its bandage soaked with redness begot by his accidental attempts to juice imaginary oranges with his bare hands. He was under a lot of stress after seeing the destruction he failed to prevent.

"Well...you're the monster who saved my life, I guess," Makoto offered, hugging her arms to her own stomach. She tried devotedly to turn Kaine's mind away from the darkness that was looming over the whole town, even though she was in her own cloudy mood as well. "Monsters are the things I've always had nightmares about...but I'd never have a nightmare about _you_, Kaine." She took a sheepish step forward, laying her tiny hand on his shoulder from behind. "You've only ever been in my _good_ dreams since we met. The dreams I didn't want to wake from, because I knew that if I woke up, if I opened my eyes...then you wouldn't have been there anymore."

Kaine tensed when her itty bitty hand fell upon his hard shoulder; the unwounded one. On the other side of his body, there was a deep pit left behind by a thick knife that the very same girl had used to make stew. He couldn't begin to imagine her guilt over being _glad_ to have jammed it into him. While he thought of the knife, he also thought of his own two hands. He could still feel the dull, bruising pain of his own knuckles as they hit the hard bones in Akemi's face. She was tough, so he doubted that he had done any permanent damage, but his arms had ended up about her neck, ready to twist it and snap it apart. He was half a heartbeat away from murdering her, and he didn't even _realize it _until the pain of Makoto's knife had snapped him out of it. "Well...like you said, I'm here now," he finally summoned up in response to the little hand, the bashful voice. He wanted to know what happened to the others, but those questions were locked away. When it was only himself and Makoto, he had no interest in the affairs of the Leaf, or of Monolith Point as a whole.

He focused on the tenderness that touched his shoulder, and when he walked again to the window, Makoto's tapping footsteps came behind and she joined him by leaning her hands on the wide sill. They both looked out at the ruination. The monolith itself still remained upright, but there were craters, lonely pillars, and stone foundations with gaping holes melted through them all dotting the landscape in a broad circle. Kaine had seen the buildings when they stood proud, and to see the aftermath was a crushing blow. He was no stranger to devastation. Every night, he relived a different memory in the form of a dream. He was intimately familiar with evil, and desolation did not surprise him anymore. It was different, though, to see the bony husk of a place he respected, a place whose ideals he had even briefly aspired toward.

As a younger boy he had always thought that Minoru was his destiny, and that the Truth Village would be his home for his entire life. He resented the world for being so dangerous, for forcing his hand to become violent. Previously, when he had no memory of his life, he felt like a lonesome outcast who only survived by sucking the life out of others. He felt as if his will had come from the deaths of many slain soldiers; as if their spirits, while departing from the realm of the living, had given him some unfair burst of vitality to push him through to the next graveyard for him to leech another life force. The little voice in his dreams had been growing clearer, though. His destiny came into focus.

"I feel like I've known you for a long time, Makoto," Kaine said to break the silence. The wind howled outside, and a few little cracks in the window frame allowed little gusts of air through to ruffle Kaine and Makoto's hair as they stood close to each other, looking out and away. "Do you think we were destined to meet each other?"

Makoto froze up, her hands white-knuckled as they gripped the window sill and her fingers tried to dig deep into the decrepit wood. She gave herself a couple of splinters as she fought the nervousness rising up and through her chest. She swallowed, her throat stuffed with childlike trepidation. When she spoke, it sounded squeaky. "I _know_ it's destiny, Kaine," she began, one hand loosening her grip on the window sill. "I n-never doubted it, but I thought you'd think it was s-silly if I said so," she stammered like a soothing song played on a skipping record. Her loosened hand then fell between their bodies, dangling in the cool air. The light of the moon shone through the window and allowed her pale skin to sparkle, and from behind there was the warmth of an oil lamp burning on the wall.

Kaine's hand scooped up Makoto's, locking his fingers into hers and smirking in his confident way. Inside, he felt quite destructible, but he wore an expression of cool confidence by default. He had known a lot of women from the Truth; Kaine even took an arrogant pride in his knowledge that a rival instructor, Medo, was jealous of his popularity with the ladies. In all his affairs, he had never felt so genuinely flustered, yet at the same time so absolutely accepted by a person—that is, a person other than Akemi. "Can I make you a promise, Makoto?"

"I'd love it if you did," the girl with the short black hair nodded once, her brown eyes ripped away from the moon to look up to Kaine's determination. Whatever he was going to say, she could tell that he was going to mean it with all his heart.

"I promise that I'll return to you someday." Kaine declared, and he stopped at that, squeezing her hand in his but unable to look down to her. He could feel her eyes turning puffy without having to steer his gaze, and he could predict the words that were about to come out of her swelling throat.

"But where are you _going_?" she asked, trying to appear strong but frowning hard.

"Minoru—no, Susumu Hyuga—is holding people under a spell that seems a lot like what Mamban was doing to you. Though, it's not nearly as obvious, that subtlety makes it so much more dangerous...For example, Akemi pretty quickly figured out that you were out of your own control, and...truthfully, she was never actually going to kill you. I could feel hesitation in the way her knife sunk into my hand. She was trying to cut the blade out of your grip, but she wasn't going to hurt you..." he trailed off, realizing that he had understood that last part far too late. At the time, in his blind rage, it didn't matter to him enough to consider Akemi's intentions. He had acted to protect Makoto and cared nothing about anyone else. "But...if you were being controlled by Susumu, she wouldn't have ever noticed it, Makoto. She would have killed you, because you would have thought that you were acting on your own."

Makoto blinked, a tear rolling down her cheek as a side effect of Kaine's ominous promise finally boiling over in its wetness. "Aki...wasn't going to kill me?" Makoto seemed confounded, but then she thought about it. She wasn't as experienced as Kaine or his sister, so she figured she could trust his word on the matter. What she saw through her own eyes looked positively _final_, but perhaps she wasn't 'saved' quite as thoroughly as she had believed. Still, she was grateful to him. He made her feel like she was the only thing in the world that was important to him. "Is Rika under his spell, too?" Makoto asked, tucking a finger under her chin, now more worried about her sister than she was about the overwhelming circumstances of Kaine's promise.

"I don't think so, Makoto. Rika's kind of an odd case." Kaine shrugged his wounded shoulder, regretting it immediately but unwilling to unclasp his hand from Makoto's to nurse the biting pain. "Akemi tells me that Rika didn't eat much, and the extra training the two did together probably forced the poison through her system too quickly for it to take root...On top of that, Tenzo says that it only lasts for up to five days, so even if she was still susceptible to him, she won't be for much longer."

Makoto nodded, satisfied. "So you're going to go back home and free the rest of your people from your master, like you did for Rika and Aki?"

Kaine hummed affirmatively. "That's right," he said. "But I'm not going alone. Susumu always used to tell me that the Leaf was pure evil, that there was no light within its walls, but I think he's got it wrong. I know that Kakashi and Tenzo want to liberate that place as much as I do."

Makoto quirked her head, pursing her lips and sweetly smiling. "I _know_ your master has got it wrong. And not because of Mister Kakashi, or Mister Tenzo," she said, cutting herself apart from the obvious notions. "It's because of _you_. They told me where you came from, because I kept asking about you, and your training, and what happened, and one thing kinda led to another and Mister Kakashi told me about you and those Root people."

Kaine winced, hardly having recalled that stinging memory himself. "I'd rather not think about that," he said, rubbing his free hand over his stomach. It was his oldest scar, the very first one that should have killed him. Akemi's knife had pierced through it almost perfectly, but its ridges were still unique and cropped out further than the newer opening. He had grown into that ancient mark while the other was carved into stronger flesh. "It's a part of my life that should have stayed buried."

"No," Makoto said, wagging her free finger and clenching her hand to his, pulling it up between them and turning to clasp both of her palms around his larger fist. "You're everything you _are_ and everything you've ever _been_, right? It's hard to accept, but we can't just wish away our mistakes, or our families, or our pasts...our only choices are the ones we make for the future. And then, once we make that choice, it becomes another part of the past, too, you know?"

Kaine blinked as he heard the surprisingly insightful murmur coming out of Makoto's unassuming, pleasingly-pudgy face. She had a look that was serious, one that pierced into him in a way that even Minoru's eyeless stare had never quite done. She could somehow see Kaine in ways that he had never _felt_ seen. She knew how to reach into his soul and grab it by the hand, how to pull it out of the darkness to face its very own light. She looked more and more like destiny's own beacon whenever he heard her voice. "Makoto..." he said in a dreamy way, turning away from the window and bringing his wounded hand up to clasp her other, tying their digits together ten-by-ten. "Where have you been all this time, all these years when I've needed you so much?"

Makoto smiled softly, red as an apple across both cheeks but speaking with an air of confidence that came from a true belief in things that were meant to happen. "I've been here all along, waiting every day for you to show up and compliment my eyes."

Kaine grinned, showing the edges of his clean teeth and letting out a doubtful breath from his nose. "Come on, you couldn't have known that was going to happen."

She shook her head 'no', giggling bashfully, suddenly unable to hold up the ruse of confidence. Her fingers were jittery in Kaine's grip, but she could feel that his were vibrating just the same. "No, but you're the first man who ever said anything like that to me. I knew it was special, the way you picked me out of the whole crowd—even Rika—and gave me so much attention."

Kaine was still doubtful. "I can't have been the first one to say it; I don't buy it for a second."

Makoto made a huffy face. "Oh come on, you've seen Rika! You know how pretty she is—I've _always_ been the pretty girl's average little sister. And then there's Aki, who's probably even prettier than Rika...I'm nothing special next to all the women like them, can't you tell?"

Kaine cleared his throat, shaking his head and looking off to the side. He felt like he was being put on the spot, but he didn't want to blatantly insult the others. "Honestly, I'd pick you every time," he muttered. "But don't tell them I said it, especially Akemi—I know how sensitive she can get about stuff like that."

"Aki's self-conscious?" Makoto asked. In the bottom of her thoughts, she was still aching over the damage dealt to her village and her family, but the gossipy little discussion brought her mood up tremendously. Kaine may have been a violent man with anger and trust issues, but he was the only man she needed in order to feel bright inside.

Kaine nodded, whispering as he leaned down to put his mouth next to Makoto's ear, sharing a secret. "She doesn't let people into her house back at the Truth because it's full of mirrors. When she's home, she can't go more than a minute without fixing her hair, or pulling her shirt down as tight as she can so it shows off her chest better."

Makoto listened dubiously. "Wow, I never woulda guessed. My first impression of Aki was that she didn't really care what people thought of her..."

Kaine winked. "Well, you're _half_ right. She doesn't care what they think of her bitchy attitude or her rough training methods, but whenever somebody tells her she's got split ends, she goes ballistic. So if you ever notice something out of place on her, try not to point it out. Odds are, she'll notice it the next time she passes a puddle."

Makoto snickered like a toddler, gleefully basking in the harmless secret. "She must really hate the bruises you gave her, then," she muttered, knowing right away that it was a touchy subject, but trying to make light of it.

Kaine winced at the mention, but he composed himself—like Makoto said, the past was in the past and the future was yet to be written. No sense feeling glum about it. He could talk to Akemi about it in the morning. "Oh, I'm sure she's steaming hot inside about it, but on the surface, she'll wear her battle wounds pretty proudly. She's got a bunch of scars below her chest, but don't tell her I told you _that_, either."

Makoto studied Kaine from top to bottom, his strong frame covered by bandages, a black shirt with short sleeves, and a pair of shorts which had legs that fell past his knees. Even then, there were scars along his face, arms and legs that could be seen. "I'll bet you've got more than she does..."

Kaine smirked at the idea, correcting her with a shake of his head and a look toward the wooden planks lining the floor. "We made it a competition, you know. We count our scars once every three months and compare the results. Whoever has more gets to be the 'champion' for that period. She won almost every time."

"When'd you stop counting?" Makoto asked, taking one hand away from Kaine's to twirl her hair self-consciously. She had been more or less brushed off when she admitted to her lack of confidence in her appearance, but she couldn't help but dwell on it while they chatted about scars and the skin that hid under clothes. She felt both sad and a bit lucky that her father and mother were still unconscious, because they would have probably been eavesdropping through the door—the Mori family's patented nosiness was a trait that Makoto had come by honestly.

"We never stopped," Kaine said with a lick of his lips, feeling a bit of shame. As he talked, he felt like a little kid who couldn't stop trying to one-up his older sibling. "Last time we counted was a little bit before the test that got me injured, which was pretty soon after I recruited Rika. I was up to sixty-eight. She beat me out by three, with seventy-one. A lot of hers are on the back; she's pretty good about protecting her front with walls and weapons."

Makoto sighed greatly, peering out the window one last time before stepping away from Kaine's hands and pulling herself back from his grasp. "Speaking of Rika, I should go check on her and Aki. They're over in the hospital."

Kaine nodded, missing the warm presence of Makoto's fingers against his own right away, but knowing from what she had said that most of the town was still under the effects of Mamban's peculiar technique. He figured that she was probably one of the only nurses who was up and about, and he nodded his approval. "Yeah, that sounds good. Tell them both that I said hi, alright? And pass the same on to Kakashi and Tenzo if you see them."

Makoto nodded, turning away with the steepest crimson shade her face had ever felt. "O-okay! Now _you_ should get some more rest. The hospital's full up but you're still not in perfect condition! You're just well enough to do without supervision." Her heart thumped like a rabbit's foot scratching an itch, taking as slow of breaths as she could manage before she parted from the room. Once the door was closed behind her, she exhaled hard and dropped her arms to the floor, feeling weak and wobbly after the soothing conversation. He wasn't the safest man to be around, or particularly the kindest, sweetest person she'd ever met—not even the most attractive, she had to begrudgingly admit. Still, Kaine Hamasaki was the exact kind of man she had been dreaming about since she was a silly little kid. Even when things were going wonderfully, she felt terrified of being next to him. She didn't want to screw up whatever it was that existed between them. She couldn't call it love—not yet. Still, it felt entirely unique, like something that only sprouted once in a long lifetime. She gave herself a moment to collect her thoughts, then stood awkwardly to scamper over to the hospital.

* * *

Akemi was looking in the mirror that was mounted along the plaster wall of her hospital room, having abandoned her bed the moment the last nurse left her shift. The whole building was emptied of staff during the night; a few of the stronger medical workers had recovered quickly, but the crew was still as exhausted as their patients, which made healthcare overnight a daunting prospect. So far, nobody was found to be in truly critical condition—people woke when they woke, and nothing could be done to hurry it up once Kakashi had done his work.

Akemi was straightening a few strands of hair that were stubbornly trying to curl, probably having been caught between a few twigs and twisted in a most frustrating way. She checked her facial bruises again, but they were already fading away; they didn't even hurt when she poked them anymore. She suddenly got the urge to sneeze, turning her head from the mirror and tucking her finger under her nose—too little, too late. She exploded in a mighty ahchoo that sprayed droplets of spit across the room. After the impulse ran its course, she groaned when she turned back to the reflective glass to find that she had blown a few strands out of place again. Somebody must have been talking about her behind her back. While she blew a sigh and got back to running her fingers quickly through her locks, she heard a voice open up from the slightly open doorway.

"Take care," the female voice muttered playfully in response to the sneeze.

Aki wasn't surprised, since she heard steps coming down the hall, but she had probably expected it to be somebody else. "Rika?" she addressed through nasally sniffs. "Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"

Rika smiled deviously, like she felt rebellious when she disobeyed the doctor's orders. "Same goes for you, doesn't it?" she challenged, tip-toeing through the door and closing it tightly behind her. The two women were in matching gowns, loose cloth robes that draped over their shoulders and covered them down to the ankles, tied tightly together in the back—Akemi's was tied just a bit tighter than the others by her own doing. "Neither of us can sleep, right?" Rika asked further, standing by the door with her hands folded behind the small of her back.

"I can sleep just fine," Akemi lied, working furiously at her hair and growing more and more irritated by the delicate, dusted blonde strands. "I'd just rather be awake if something happens. Anyway, if you're walking around, shouldn't you go see your parents?"

Rika shook her head. "Nah, they're still out cold. Besides, they're still ticked that I left in the first place."

"They didn't seem all that ticked," Akemi replied, plying her hair between firm fingers and trying to reverse the obnoxious twists. "I remember a lot of laughing and goofing around before the attack happened."

"Can't always tell when family's ticked at each other by how they sound. It's tougher than that." Rika shrugged, carrying herself on quiet feet toward her sensei, looking into the mirror from the side. "Whatcha doing?"

Akemi brought a hand up from her hair to press her palm against Rika's forehead and lightly shove her out of the portrait. "Fixing my hair."

Rika poked herself back into frame, grinning with mischief. "Why are you fixing your hair at two in the morning? Aren't you just going to lay back down and mess it up again?"

Again, Aki pushed Rika away from her reflected view, scowling. Eventually, she gave up on her stubborn hair and turned away from the mirror, crossing her bare arms over one another and tucking them under her chest. "Can I be brutally honest with you for a second, Rika?"

Rika snickered, canting her head aside and letting her natural curls wash down the light green fabric of her standard-issue hospital garb. "Aren't you _always_ brutally honest?"

Akemi smirked. "Suppose so. Anyway, I'm awake because I'm fretting over _you_."

Rika furrowed her brows and pushed her lips out like she felt accused. "Why are you worrying about me? I'm the one who saved you from drowning, right?"

Akemi rolled her eyes. "I would've been alright either way...I'm talking about _before_ that. Mamban could have killed you, and that scares me, okay?"

Rika scoffed, stepping closer to Akemi and jutting her jaw out to look tough. "He could have killed _you_, too, though. Why are you so worried about _me_?"

"If it was _just _me, I wouldn't care so much," Akemi admitted, turning away to the mirror again. She basked in her own reflection, appraising her own value and feeling confident in what she said. "Rika...you've got family, you've got friends. You've got a place to come home to and a world that loves you...whereas I'm just a shinobi without a village—they call people like me and Kaine missing-nin, or rogue ninjas. We're the kind of criminals that get killed on sight by our own villages to keep secrets from falling into the wrong hands."

Rika smirked, keeping up a defiant, confrontational kind of tone: "Well...technically, the same thing goes for me, doesn't it?"

Akemi sighed, shaking her head emphatically and smoothing out her hair. It was as good as it was going to look without a proper cleansing. "You were never actually a ninja of the Truth, just a prospect—you don't know any secrets. Besides, even if that weren't the case, you've got this place here. You _belong_ to something already."

Rika shrugged, turning herself to lean her back against the wall, feet flat on the smooth floor. "There are people who care about you, too, Aki. I know Tito really likes you, even if he seems to be afraid of you. He's always been pretty hopeless around girls, always trying to hit on me because he wanted to impress his buddies, but also knew I wouldn't take him up on it. No risk at all."

Akemi perked a brow. "You know, I guess I forgot that you and Tito are from the same place. Poor guy doesn't even know his home's been destroyed. Though, on the bright side, I wonder how he'll react when we tell him that Mako and Fiona are still alive...what do you say, Rika? Do you think Kakashi can fix those two like he's fixing the others?"

Rika huffed. "I was hoping to ask you the same question, actually. I don't even know where Kakashi went off to, or I'd ask him. A few hours ago, I saw him heading into the woods with Tenzo, and they didn't say a single word to me. And since we're being brutally honest, they kind of _scare_ me."

Akemi reached her hands up to rest on Rika's shoulders sternly, meeting eye to eye. "Listen here for a second...Kakashi and Tenzo aren't the ones to be afraid of. Mamban's the typical fare for an enemy shinobi—and those two are _seriously_ different from him, right? So, let's just assume that they're _not_ going to kill us in our sleep."

Rika looked to her teacher's hands on her shoulders, biting the bottom corner of her lip with unspoken wondering. She continued talking through the thoughts that screamed loud in her head, trying to push it down like always. "I...wasn't worried like _that_, I just mean that they're so _powerful_...seriously, are all high-level shinobi like that? Like, if Tenzo had wanted to do it, he could've wrecked Monolith Point just as fast as Mamban did. What keeps him so humble, so helpful? What makes him different from a monster?"

Akemi pondered for a moment, running her hands down Rika's arms in thought passively, feeling the delicate skin beneath her own bare palms. "Mm, I don't know...I guess he still thinks of himself as another human, is all," Aki mumbled, noting that Rika had been leaning her back against the wall. Something clicked, and she boldly stepped in close to Rika, looking toward her student's nervously nibbled lower lip with a flick of her eyes. She then grinned devilishly. "Ya know, we're gonna have matching scars," the sensei whispered to her student, then ran her fingers along the bandages that covered Rika's neck. Akemi had a similar patch bound to her skin, covering the vaguely hand-shaped burns that Mamban's acid left behind. Although Kakashi was quick enough to spare them a more grisly fate, he wasn't _quite_ fast enough to preserve them completely.

Rika nodded with a shuddering breath, suddenly feeling rather trapped by something she usually tried to avoid as Aki got close enough to breathe down her neck. Rika tried to loosen her own tense muscles, but she couldn't even begin to do it as she had a thousand thoughts all running through her head, competing to be the first one spoken through her mouth. Rika settled on wetting her lips with a nervous tongue; they were dry from her quick breathing and she hadn't even noticed that she was panting urgently until then. "I don't mind scars," Rika said, not entirely honest with regards to herself, but knowing full well that Akemi had her fair share of the permanent blemishes.

"Can I see yours, then?" Akemi murmured, her foot moving between Rika's feet, touching her toes to the wall behind her student and keeping that sly smirk on her face. Her hands were sliding down the other woman's arms again, then slipped inward to land on Rika's hips in a far more blatant manner, holding her with firm fingers.

Rika wasn't as bashful as her sister, and although she did blush lightly along her cheeks, she had a brazen and sultry grin of her own to match Akemi's. Rika hummed softly, a noise that came out sounding a little bit like a muffled gasp, then pushed herself forward to press into Aki's form in front of her. "Maybe later," Rika breathed enticingly, bringing her own hands up to Akemi's shoulders and squeezing with pent up shivers before touching her down the bare arms to mirror what she felt a moment before, following all the way down to the clutching fingers on her own waist. "This doesn't feel like training," Rika teased, wetting her lips again and looking up at Aki's smirk. Both of their stares were heavy and twinkling, something triggered between them with suddenness—maybe it was the moonlight through the window, maybe it was the shared near-death experience, but maybe it was something else that was far more inevitable.

Akemi sighed roughly when she felt Rika mold against her own body. Aki was strong and firm, but Rika was soft and pliant, though still fit and slender. "Maybe we can add it to the regimen," Akemi offered scandalously, her hands reaching around Rika's waist and gliding up her back to find the rear of her head, grasping a hefty mass of curls and playing with the silky smoothness. She had to admit that she was jealous of her student's effortlessly lustrous hair. That was a thought for another time, though, as she had been wanting to do something for a number of weeks.

There was a long pause as they looked at each other, shaking bodies held against one another, their somewhat uncomfortable hospital robes pulled tightly across their shapes as they contorted together, arms wrapped around each other in full heat. Rika opened her mouth, unable to settle on breathing through her nose, trying to subtly give permission to the object of her desire. "Why'd you stop, Aki?" she panted, feeling her hair grasped so possessively behind her head. It was surreal, something that was part of a shameless fantasy that just so happened to coincide with her waking moments.

Akemi was breathing heavy as well, her teeth clamped together with restraint. She tried to fight the urge, to tell herself that it wasn't a true thing she was feeling. She thought back to the night of her choice—she had chosen to save Rika. Before that, she had chosen to give the new recruit a rare chance to become her personal student. At some point undetermined, Akemi felt some urge to protect that singular woman, an urge that supplanted any other feeling she may have had about the Truth Village, or Minoru, or any other loyalty she had ever felt. Where did that urge come from? She didn't know, exactly. All she knew for sure was that she couldn't keep it under the surface anymore.

"I'm supposed to be your sensei, Rika," Akemi said, not sounding at all remorseful or hesitant, simply stating the way things were. "And this? This isn't exactly _traditional_."

Rika smiled knowingly, with a fire in her eyes and a warmth in the pit of her stomach. "I never wanted _traditional_," she whispered in response, offering herself close to Aki's lips, whispering to where her breath tickled the other woman's chin. "What I _really_ want...is _you_."

Akemi heard those electrifying words and pushed through whatever final barrier had kept her from carrying out her oft-imagined action. "That's my girl," she murmured. She leaned her head salaciously to one side, closing her eyes and leaning in as Rika responded in kind by readying her quivering mouth for contact and tilting the other way to complement the connection.

Urgent breath was flowing heatedly between them, and their mutually-needy lips tightly pressed together with a longing that eclipsed any fear of death or apprehension for the future. Rika and Akemi found one another in that single moment of time and they locked in, their lips molding satisfyingly together and lingering that way for an unmeasured eternity. Rika no longer had any trouble with the tension of her muscles, her whole self falling apart to become little more than jelly. She collapsed against the wall, but Aki's embrace held her up, strong arms keeping her steadily close and pinning her tantalizingly against the hard-built surface with a push of the stronger woman's entire self.

Just as Akemi began to take Rika's lower lip between hers and suckle lewdly to deepen the contact, the door to the room opened up and a familiar face popped in unannounced. The third presence seemed to instantly notice that Akemi was awake, but then she took a much longer moment to comprehend what exactly she had interrupted. "Hey Aki, are you...okay...?" Makoto began, then trailed off with wide eyes, a hand launching up to quickly cover her mouth. She mumbled through parted fingers. "Uh...yeah, actually, I'll uhm...come back later, then? ...Oh, by the way, Kaine said h-hi!" Makoto stammered in a hurry, closing the door and disappearing as quickly as she arrived to scurry away in embarrassment. The touch of lips ended as both of the participants looked blankly toward the opened-then-closed door.

Their first kiss was finished—its existence couldn't be taken back, and even if it could have been, neither of them had any regrets. It was a moment of passion that broke them both free of their usual restraints, but with the mousy little voice of Rika's younger sister, the reality of the world came in to fill each of their ears. Despite how it felt for those disappearing seconds, they weren't the _only_ two people who mattered. However, something had irrevocably been made clear during that long-overdue lock of lips.

They realized in unspoken, absolute terms that they were important to one another in a way that superseded master-student. Though it had finally manifested as a display of wildly uncontrolled lust, the end of that kiss proceeded into something deeper. Both of the women, nearly equal in age, felt the exact same thing thumping against both sides of their chests...they were so tightly pressed together, so intimately entwined, that they could feel the exact timing of one another's pulse. They were a single existence with two heartbeats, perfectly synched together by unbridled excitement.

The arrival of Makoto had thrown off the grip of thoughtless passion, yet it hadn't emotionally separated them by even one _bit_. Their eyes were held together, still twinkling, still shameless. Akemi's arms were wrapped around the softest parts of Rika, and similarly, Rika was clamped tight to Aki with hopeful brightness in her eyes. The moment had changed shape, but it wasn't gone; it was only resting. Akemi found words first, always the one who took the lead between the two: "You know, Rika, I think I'd sleep a lot better if you stayed with me tonight..."

Rika nodded quickly, sucking in her moistened lips and running her hand down Aki's side, probing fingers drifting across the master's hip and thigh. Rika could still feel the wetness of Aki's mouth on hers, could still hear their combined moans in her ears, the implications ringing endlessly. When she spoke, it was with hardly any breath but plenty of sincerity: "If I could pick any place in the world to be, I'd pick the place nearest to you, Aki."

With appreciative, mischievous grins on both of their faces, they joined hands and moved toward the bed—but first, Akemi propped an empty visitor's chair against the door to prevent any more intrusions for a while.

Makoto was a bit surprised by what she had seen, but she wasn't exactly floored. Her quick exit was more for the sake of giving her sister and Aki some privacy. She was embarrassed, but she would've been just as embarrassed if she walked in on _anybody_ like that. Makoto had never really known for absolute sure, but Rika had always seemed a sight less _fond_ of men than her little sister was—Rika was known to be completely unattainable, which made her all the more sought after by the boys around town. She was seen as a challenge, a trophy to be won—nobody really understood _why_ she always turned her suitors away. Makoto had always figured that Rika saw it as a game, a harmless way to assert her confidence by shooting down every attractive fellow who came her way. Seeing her with Aki in such an unabashedly blissful state was all it took to convince Makoto, at last, that Rika really _wasn't_ interested in a boyfriend at all—she must have always wanted a _girlfriend_. At the same time, she crossed Akemi's name off of her mental list of competitors for Kaine's affection.

Though the younger sister made a quick escape, she didn't go all that far. She had to struggle against her birthright—that inherited need to snoop around. She couldn't just go running back to Kaine, either, since she had made such an abrupt show of excusing herself. Instead, she parked herself in an unfilled chair in the lobby, picking up one of Kakashi's lingering books and opening the pages. She wasn't tired enough to sleep, and before long she would have duties to fulfill around the hospital. She reached around her back, feeling the itch of her sealed mark to give it a calming scratch. She started wondering if it was truly locked away for good. Feeling her own advice cropping back up, she pushed the concerns of the past to the very deepest regions of her thoughts, deciding not to make a big deal out of it.

The sun wouldn't be up for several hours, and until then Makoto was quite happy to keep her thoughts occupied by reading. As she read, she smiled genuinely when her thoughts crept back to the look on her sister's face. She had locked eyes with Rika for just a single moment before shutting the door, but all it took was a tiny snapshot—from that briefest glimpse, Makoto could tell that Rika was extremely happy to be braced in those arms, touched by those lips. The 'average younger sister' had to admit that she was _absurdly_ jealous—she heavily considered going to visit Kaine again after all.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Next update soon.**


	31. Two More Weeks

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Morning peeked through the window and Akemi's eyes scrunched to escape the pesky light. The curtains were drawn open the night before, and she had rather delightfully found herself too occupied to close them before the dawn irritated her. Her left arm had no feeling, and she furrowed her brows while trying to wake up. "Mmph," she murmured, feeling something weighing down on her chest as well. With a sticky effort, her eyelids parted and she could see the room clearly—Rika was sleeping on top of her, the pool of black curls hiding her face as she snuggled into her teacher's chest. She was also draped over Aki's left arm, putting it to sleep and robbing it of sensation. A small sacrifice to make, it was decided.

Aki didn't want to move too much and disturb her partner, but she did lift her good hand up to brush her fingers through the disheveled curls atop the other woman's head. A part of her had worried, as one must always worry about such splendor, that the night before had only been a dream brought on by her injured head. Even under the warm rays of the sun, she still wondered if she might have been asleep; unconscious and living a fantasy story that would never become true. Rather than tempt fate, she kept her eyes firmly open, her focus strictly on her dozing student. If it _was_ a dream, it was a dream that she would hold onto for as long as possible.

Minutes ticked by, then an hour, and Akemi breathed out a held breath that had been keeping her torso tense. Her exhale blew across Rika's hair, splaying little strands in wild directions and letting them tickle Akemi's own skin while she hung her arm around the black-topped crown. It couldn't have been a dream—she had never had such a long, detailed one. Even still, she felt a tug of unease. Why did she deserve to be so lucky after failing to protect the beautiful person who was sharing her bed so comfortably? Kakashi Hatake was the one who made that glorious moring possible in the first place.

Stretching herself out, Aki twirled some of Rika's hair around a pair of playful fingers, tugging and curling while her nails gave light scratches along the scalp beneath. "Wakey wakey, Rika," she whispered, leaning her head down to bury herself in her favorite curls. Rika stirred at last, grumbling out some incoherent words and then digging herself deeper into the plushness of Aki's covered breasts. "Heeey, come on," Akemi pushed further, giving Rika a gentle knock on the forehead with firm knuckles.

Eventually, Rika awoke completely and with a start, groggy from a deep sleep and rubbing her eyes clean of crusty, sleepy buildup. She yawned, her jaw stretching open and then snapping shut to cut off the accidental squeak at the end. She brought a hand up, self consciously covering her mouth with a blush. "Oh...morning, Aki," she murmured, closing her eyes and renegotiating her position, reaching her mouth up to give a sweet, casual kiss to her sensei's warm lips. It came so easily, felt so natural, that it was tough not to wonder why it had taken so long for the mutual affection to become normal.

The dusty blonde ninja offered a press of her lips in greeting, answering what was given and then running an affectionate hand down the slope of Rika's shoulder. "You know what time it is, right?" she muttered, awake for an hour but still too comfortable to want to move. Rika gave another yawn, knowing the answer but wanting to keep it hidden behind her mouth. The student took the blanket that covered each of them and held it more tightly around her shoulders, robbing it from Aki's feet and inviting the chill to brush over her toes. "Rude," Akemi muttered, trying to get mad, but once again finding it impossible. Instead, she sighed and turned herself out of bed, falling sloppily to the cool floor of her hospital room and leaving Rika behind on the mattress. Aki lazily dragged herself onto her feet by holding onto the edge of the bed.

"It's training time, little lady," Akemi said, shaking her head out and running her fingers through her hair. The back of her gown was untied, and she reached behind herself to drag the whole thing off. It was uncomfortable, anyway. She dug through a drawer beside the bed and found the clothes she had been wearing. Somebody had cleaned and pressed them, and the stains were washed clean from her favorite shirt. The scars all up and down her body were in plain view of Rika, who stared in gentle awe at the full physique of the shinobi beside her. Quickly, Aki dressed herself in the dark pink top, the tan, loose-fitting pants. She slung the sheathe of her knife through an empty belt loop and tapped the hilt to make sure it was securely in place. Then she turned to Rika and lifted her foot, pressing the edge of her heel to her student's shoulder. "Come on, we don't get to take days off just because we're injured."

Rika yawned again, trying to pretend that she hadn't been watching Aki get dressed, but she knew she wasn't very good at spying—especially not when it came to spying on a person with so much experience. When the rookie finally lurched out of bed, she hit the floor just like her sensei, still weak despite the wonderful rest she got to have. "I'm up," she said weakly, muffled by the tile floor.

"You don't lookvery '_up_' to me," Akemi said, stepping around the bed to grab the lazy girl around the arm and lift her onto her feet. "I'll go get your clothes out of your room so you can walk around in public without looking like an escaped patient."

"Isn't that what I'll be? I'm supposed to be resting, remember?" Rika stood with assistance, but she was wobbly, leaning heavily on her partner and stifling another yawn with the crook of her elbow. "Besides, it's too _early_ to train."

"It's never too early to train, love," Akemi bounced back gently, adopting a new nickname for her student by instinct. It felt appropriate. "I'll give you twenty minutes to shake yourself loose, but I'll be coming back on the dot."

Rika peered up at Aki, pouting a bit. "You're not sticking around?"

Aki shook her head. "I've been up for an hour, and I've been wanting to go talk to your sister about last night. I need to see if Kakashi's back, too. I want to thank him for saving you...I mean, for saving _us._"

Rika pondered over the words, sounding defeated but looking giddy. "Fiiine, I'll get ready. But if you want to take a little bit longer than twenty, I won't mind, y'know," she clarified, reaching her hand up to run through Aki's hair—it looked rough and frizzed, but felt like soft feathers to her sore fingers.

Akemi smirked, plucking Rika's hand by the wrist and guiding it to her mouth, kissing the back of her bruised knuckles. "Nineteen minutes, now," she said with a wink before turning to depart. She slipped her boots on near the door, tugging at the rubbery soles to secure them in place against her feet. "See you soon," she added with a casual wave, kicking the chair away from its barricading position against the handle and opening the door to escape the confines of the hospital.

On her way out, Akemi ran into Makoto zipping through the hall on her way to somebody's room, a tray in her hands that bore a glass of water and a bowl of green slop that looked pretty unpleasant. "Makoto," Akemi called out, raising a hand to catch her attention. The shorter, stockier girl turned on her heel and held the tray awkwardly, her head tilted in awaiting silence. "I, uh...so, how're you doing this morning?"

Makoto answered the question with a casual shrug. Somehow she managed to act like nothing had happened—not the kiss she stumbled in on, nor the volatile situation near the stream. "I'm doing great, Aki, thanks for asking!" she chirped, grinning wide. "Say, is Rika still in your room? I meant to bring this to her, but your door wasn't opening earlier..."

Akemi clenched her jaw, forcing a smile. "Uh, yep...she's still in there. Listen, Makoto; I want to apologize for what happened the other day. Hamasaki was an idiot, but I was an idiot, too. We're both idiots all the time, and I don't know how much of it you saw, but I'm sorry about whatever it was."

Makoto shrugged, her meager shoulders barely holding up the loose sag of her dress along her collar. "It's alright! That's just how things happened, is all," she stated plainly, looking like she wanted to wave her hands around expressively but keeping her grip glued to both ends of her delivery. "Kaine already apologized, too. Were you looking for him?"

Aki shook her head. "No, not yet. Actually, I was wondering if you had seen Kakashi around today?"

Makoto nodded. "Yep! He was here about two hours ago, looking for you and Rika. I told him that he _probably_ didn't want to disturb you," she winked, looking a bit too mischievous for her own good. "He told me to send you to Kaine's room whenever you woke up. Rika, too. Is she awake yet?"

Akemi nodded. "I made sure she was. I agreed to give her twenty minutes, but when you see her, can you tell her that I said to come meet me in Kaine's room as soon as she can, instead?"

Makoto gave a curt bob of her head, the simple bonnet at the top of her form keeping her short hair concealed. "Will do! I'll come by, too, once I've fed everyone who's awake."

Akemi nodded, turning to leave with a relieved sigh. For some reason, she had expected the 'morning after' to be a lot more complicated than it was turning out to be. Neither Rika nor her sister seemed to be acting uncomfortable around her, and that was something of a first—Akemi was so used to sticking out like the monolith in the center of town when it came to being around 'normal' people, and especially when one of those normal people happened to have slept with her the night before. With grateful, cheerful thoughts in her head, she made her way to the inn a few dozen steps from the main door of the hospital.

* * *

Inside Kaine's room, which was actually the room shared between all three of the male shinobi currently in town, Kakashi and Tenzo were mulling over their gathered intel from a two-pronged scouting excursion the night before. Tenzo was relaying his personal findings: "The cave was already empty when I showed up, but I could smell rotten flesh; new blood was smeared on a stone slab that looked like some sort of operating table. I didn't find any bodies in their lair, but I did find one rough-looking grave marker hidden in the brush outside—it was staked beside a freshly filled hole. Only one body was in there, but it was pretty mangled. I don't know who it belonged to, but I assume it was one of the guys we fought."

Kakashi nodded, rubbing the mask along his chin. "That's ominous—I would have expected there to be two graves; could you have possibly missed one?"

Tenzo shrugged. "Anything's possible, but I did a pretty thorough sweep of the place. Mamban and his minions weren't anywhere to be found. Did you see them on _your_ trip?"

Kakashi shook his head. "No, not a sign of any of them. The barrier around the Truth was down when I showed up, but it was brought back up shortly after I arrived. Susumu might have noticed me in the trees. I saw dozens of soldiers, some Mamban's, some Susumu's—they were gearing up for battle, it looked like. They might be aiming to strike here again, or more likely someplace else. I think we should end this once and for all before they have a chance to do any more damage."

Kaine was sitting up on his bed, sheets pooled around his waist and a black shirt layering over his chest and stomach. "You don't think we can just walk in and take over the village, do you? Even if we had that kind of manpower, I don't want any of the Truth members to die. Can we find Minoru and capture him without confronting any of the others?"

"No, I don't think so," Kakashi said in response, folding his hands behind his head and leaning back in his chair with his gaze angled toward the ceiling. "He let me in once, but at the time he was trying to win me over to his side. I don't think he would extend the same courtesy a second time."

Kaine smirked. "Yeah, didn't figure. What if I went in first and tried to lower the barrier from the inside? He might let me come back in if I'm by myself, and once I'm there I can bring the shield down."

Tenzo murmured apprehensively. "It may not be that easy—assuming that you managed to get in, we don't have a clue where that barrier is actually coming from. Kakashi and I both thought that Susumu's real body was maintaining its existence, but he proved during their skirmish that it continued on without a need to consciously hold it up."

The door creaked open, and Akemi stepped in, just catching the last bit of that discussion. "Hey, you started the party without me?" she was only then peeling away her bandages, dropping gauze and wool to the floor and dirtying it up before kicking the discarded dressings into a pile along the corner. Her neck was revealed; the burns left behind by Mamban's acid looked less like a hand and more like an angled rain drop, the small tip starting under her ear and the bulbous base bottoming out beneath her chin. The discoloration was obvious, looking red and veiny compared to the smooth complexion that made up the rest of her exposed skin. "If you want to know about Master Minoru's barrier, I can tell you a few things."

Kakashi turned his head to regard the new arrival, his eye lazy and half-open as he addressed her. "Good afternoon, Akemi. You seem to be in a good mood this time."

Akemi put on a face that looked like she had a secret to tell, but she kept it vague. "Let's just say that a pleasant dream I had last night turned out to be true after all." Clearing her throat and returning to the subject of importance, her elated look turned to a strong stare toward Kaine. "Hamasaki, I don't think Minoru ever told you this, but I was there when he first set up the barrier—it wasn't created by him alone. He took volunteers who put the safety of the village before their own lives—I tried to be one of them, but he told me that I was more useful to him if I stayed available."

Kaine looked surprised, but he tried to hide the notion. He had always known that Akemi was Minoru's closer disciple, privy to a handful of secrets that her male counterpart would never have been trusted with...probably because he took so many journeys to other places. "What do you mean volunteers? What did he do to them?"

Akemi hummed with some sorrow. "We founded the village where we did for a reason—Minoru told me that it was located where he was born, and that the place he picked as his chamber was where he first learned the truth. It didn't make a lot of sense to me, but he took me deep inside once. It was too dark for me to see, but I could hear it when he opened some doors in the distance and led the volunteers into the void. I heard the doors close, but that's all there was. The barrier came up pretty soon after—I think those volunteers are fueling it, somehow."

Kakashi compared the woman's information to what he remembered. "I did see several doors along the walls of the hall that led to the real Susumu's seat. There may have been people behind them, but I couldn't see inside to find out. If they're the ones holding up the barrier, then we might be able to bring it down long enough for all of us to get inside. Alternatively, I can tear a hole through the barrier that might be big enough to squeeze through, but I'll be too drained to do much else for several minutes afterward."

Akemi looked at Kakashi, either impressed or skeptical. A bit of both. "You can get through his barrier? Nothing's ever been able to pierce it before—what makes you think you're strong enough to do something like that?"

Tenzo answered for his colleague. "He's done it once before. I'd rather not tell you the precise details, but rest assured that it's our Plan B. Kaine, are you sure that you want to risk returning alone? The rest of us will be nearby, but we need to stay out of Susumu's visual range to avoid suspicion—that's a couple of miles, at least. You'll be on your own until we can catch up."

Kaine nodded, pounding his fist against his palm and then feeling the shooting agony of his wound. He had no idea how he managed to keep forgetting that his hand was ruined. "Gah...yeah, I'm positive that I'm willing to risk it. Not yet, though. I'll need to be in top condition before I do something stupid again."

Tenzo looked amused by the clumsy nature of Kaine. In his soothing baritone, he offered the beginning of his timeframe: "We're going to need some time to make preparations. Besides Susumu, Mamban's still out there, and so's the woman with the puppet strings. We've already sent for reinforcements from the Leaf, but there's no telling when, or even _if_ they'll arrive. At the very least, I'll need some time to perfect my plan to counter Susumu's Magnet Release. The weapons we've got right now aren't going to do us any good against him."

Kaine nodded, unsure of exactly what Magnet Release really was, but able to draw up a theory—it probably involved metal, and all of his own armaments were _definitely_ made of metal. "I'll trust you, then, Tenzo," Kaine said, looking to Akemi. "Speaking of weapons, I think I owe Rika a knife of her own, don't I?"

Akemi chuckled, surprised that he remembered. "I guess you do, since we're still alive. Don't forget that there's something I want you to add to mine, as well."

Kaine nodded, looking to his bloody palm. It would need to be wrapped again. While he was contemplating his own mortality, the door opened yet again to allow Rika and Makoto to pour in as one single blob, squeezing against each other to pop in simultaneously and then separate—Rika was the slender one, Makoto the full-bodied, shorter one. _Together_ they looked like sisters, but with a bit of space between them it would be tough to make the connection.

Rika went to Akemi's side, clinging to her arm in a rather intimate manner. A few curious stares were garnered from around the room, but nobody vocally questioned the blatant affection and instead turned back to the task. "Anyway," Tenzo continued from where he left off. "We're going to need two weeks to heal and prepare. With luck, Susumu and Mamban will still be licking their wounds while we regroup, which will give us just enough breathing room before we launch our offensive."

Kakashi gave a hum of confirmation, looking over his shoulder to Rika and Makoto, with special focus on the older sister. "You're Rika, right? We haven't properly met. I'm—"

"Kakashi Hatake. I know about you," Rika interrupted, not trying to be rude but somewhat jittery at being looked at by such a strong man, clutching Aki's arm tightly and rubbing her cheek on the nearby shoulder. Their connection was still fresh, its glue still drying—even the twenty minute interval of being apart was a little bit too long for Rika's taste. "You saved us from Mamban."

Kakashi was silent, but he could read the gratitude on the novice's face. Akemi was just as appreciative, but she voiced it clearly: "We owe you our lives, Kakashi. And we owe the same to Tenzo, for the night before that. Without the two of you, we'd either be dead or enslaved by now. Thank you both so very much," Akemi rattled off, bowing her head and reaching her hand over to tuck behind Rika's skull, using that grip to dip her down as a mirror of gratitude. "If you need us for anything at all, we'll do what we can to repay our debt."

Tenzo raised a hand to slow their momentum, a humble smile on his broad mouth. "There's no need for that; you don't owe us a thing. Though, on that note: Makoto is obviously going to stay behind, but the two of you can opt out as well. Kaine told me about your experience with Mamban in that ruined village to the east—I think you've had about enough for one month, yeah?"

Rika looked offended, like she was about to protest, but Akemi clamped her hand over the opening mouth and caught a muffled grumble in her palm. "What my student means to say is that she'd be grateful to have a break. For me, though, there's no chance that I'm sitting this one out—I owe one to Minoru and to Mamban. If they really are working together and there's a chance I can tend to them both at the same time, well...that's just good planning."

Rika folded her arms over one another and waited for her mouth to be let go of. "You know I'm not letting you go _anywhere_ without me, right, Aki?" she inquired sternly, the hard look in her eyes leaving no room for denial. Akemi tried to resist, tried to see the logic behind leaving those fetching eyes behind to look after the sick and wounded, but she sighed and relented.

"Yeah, she's right. We're both coming with you, and that's that." Aki shrugged, as if it were out of her hands, ruffling Rika's hair and then pecking a light kiss to her cheek. "She's gotten really strong. Even if we're not much compared to legends like you, we'll do our part to set the Truth free."

Kakashi gave a thumbs-up. "Perfect. I had hoped you might say that. I don't want to pressure you, but we're hopelessly outnumbered as it is. I'm confident that I can defeat Mamban or Susumu, perhaps both, but not if they've got an entire army at their backs. I'll need as much support as I can get."

"Do you want to capture Minoru, or are you planning to kill him?" Akemi asked, looking unsure. She didn't know which of the two she would prefer. She had grown to hate that man in short order, but there were still countless good memories that she associated with him. Though she had plenty of reasons to resent him, she still felt conflicted about how she wanted it all to end.

"Capture is the goal when it comes to Susumu—for Mamban, it's kill-on-sight. He's too far gone and far too reckless to be left alone. If we don't come across him during the battle, we'll certainly see him again another day." Kakashi thought back to the man's eyes—yellow, red, and sickly green. His skin was falling apart, and the chakra network beneath was corrupt beyond redemption. His days were surely numbered. Mamban was either going to die in battle, or he was going to collapse in on himself due to the instability of his growing power. Either way, the outcome would be best for everybody if it came _soon_.

"The Truth itself doesn't have much in the way of battle strength—nobody there's much stronger than Rika, except for Minoru, and the other head instructor besides me and Akemi. His name's Medo, and he's pretty strong. I'd say he was about even with me the last time we fought," Kaine explained, looking again to his hand. "Though, if he tries to stop me, I'll have to show him my new trick."

"Be careful with it, Kaine," Tenzo professed. "When I found you, you weren't too terribly wounded, but you were completely out of it. Your Storm Release is undoubtedly powerful, but it's a huge drain on your body."

"Not to mention that it wasn't quite enough to kill Cassy," Akemi reminded him. "Medo's kind of a pushover compared to the kinds of people we're fighting these days, but listen to Tenzo and be careful with your power. We're not going to have much use for you if you pass out after one blast."

"I'll see about practicing it some more, then," Kaine acquiesced. "If we've got two weeks, maybe I can figure out how to weave it without putting all of my chakra into it. When it came out of me, it was everything I had—I was doing it to protect Makoto, and I moved without thinking it through. I just need to find a good balance between power and efficiency, I think."

Kakashi seemed satisfied. "Alright, we've all got something to do, then. Tenzo, prepare the countermeasures for Susumu's Magnet Style. Kaine, hone your techniques. Makoto, keep looking after the people who haven't woken up yet. Akemi, you and Rika focus on training—every little bit helps, just try not to overdo it as we get closer to the deadline."

"What about you, Mister Kakashi?" Makoto asked in a quiet voice.

"I'm going to continue my patrols around the forest—if the Truth makes a move before we're ready, I'll be the first to know, and Tenzo will know through me." Kakashi held his hand out, and Tenzo set a few seeds in his palm. "One way or another, this situation is going to come to an end within two weeks."

"Two weeks," Kaine echoed. "I'll be ready by then."

"We all will be," Kakashi said with confidence. "Once this ugly business is behind us, we'll make arrangements to see Monolith Point reconstructed. For now, I had better keep my eyes open. Give a shout if you need me—that goes for all of you." He gave a final nod, his hair sagging under the movement as his noggin bobbed. "Make your time count." In a flash, he was gone; he was out the window and through the trees in the space of a blink.

"Wow, he's fast," Rika said in wide-eyed wonder. "Do you think I can be as good as him some day, Aki?"

Akemi snickered, looking doubtful. Prodigies like Kakashi were rare, but it didn't hurt to have dreams—"Not if you skip your training," the master replied to the student, brandishing a snarky grin.

"Then let's get to training!" Rika answered with a bold pump of her fist.

"In a minute—say, can you guys let me talk with Hamasaki alone?" Akemi looked around at Tenzo, Rika, and Makoto. The two sisters gave polite nods and backed out of the room in unison. Tenzo seemed less thrilled about it, but realized he was in the middle of family affairs, and so he excused himself through the door as well.

With the room empty and the wooden barrier shut into its frame, Akemi sighed and took a seat on the side of Kaine's bed, running her finger along the sheet hesitantly. "I'll bet you know what I'm going to say."

"I've got _some_ idea," Kaine said back to her, full of shame. "I'm sorry, Akemi—I don't know what happened. By the time I could think clearly, I had a knife in my shoulder so deep that my arm wanted to stop working."

Akemi sighed, shaking her head. "It's not even about what happened, exactly; it's more about what it meant to me. It doesn't matter, on its own, that you tried to kill me, or that you were too vapid to notice that she was being controlled...I just want to know right now, with no doubts remaining: does she mean more to you than I do?"

Kaine was put on the spot, gulping as the thoughts splintered over his brain. Pins and needles were everywhere, and he wasn't sure what the truth was anymore. "I don't know, Akemi. You can't ask me a question like that!" Kaine climbed out of bed, turning to face away from his de facto sister, unable to look into her eyes. Which one meant more to him? Makoto was a girl he barely knew, but she possessed a gravity that sucked him closer by the day. He couldn't fight her pull anymore, but on the other side of the grip was Akemi, whom he had grown up with and trained with, a girl who was now a woman, a person who knew all his secrets and whose secrets he knew all of. They knew every facet of one another's strengths and weaknesses, had seen their own flaws and triumphs through the eyes of each other.

"I won't be angry if you say yes, Hamasaki; I just want to know one way or the other so that I won't be surprised later on." Aki shrugged, running her fingers along the molten scar on her neck. She segued into her own confession. "Last night, me and Rika wound up in bed together."

Kaine blinked, turning his head around and lifting a brow with a lack of understanding. "And...? You shared a bed when we arrived here in the first place, right?"

Akemi felt her cheeks heat up, ever glad that she was facing away from him. "No, I mean like...we were in bed_...close together. _Come on, I get that you're dumb, but you _know_ what I'm getting at—Anyhow, I guess my point is that she means a lot to me, and for the sake of honesty, I'm telling you that I'd probably choose _her_ over _you_ if I was forced."

Kaine scoffed, shutting his eyes and trying not to sound pissed. "Trust me, I get it. You're my sister, Akemi; you always will be. Makoto's...well, I don't know what she is to me. Not yet. I'd like her to be something special, but I don't know if it can ever happen, realistically. She's too different from me, too sweet and kind to deserve having to put up with my flaws." He plopped down on the bed, stretching all the way across its width on his back and hanging his head down off the side where Akemi was seated. He looked up at her, letting a smirk grow into a teasing grin. "So, you and Rika...how was it?"

Akemi knocked him on the head with a balled fist, sure to leave a swollen bump later on as the knuckles collided with solid skull. "You're such a kid! Don't ask personal questions like that!" she scolded him, but she was smiling beneath it all. After a few seconds of silence, with her different-blooded sibling rubbing his head in defeat, Akemi whispered with her hands clutched bashfully together in her lap, pulling at the fabric of her pants along her upper thighs. "It was _perfect_, though."

Kaine puffed some air out through his nose, then sat himself up, giving Akemi a pat on the back, whistling in a fascinated way. "Already calling it perfect, eh? Good for the both of you, then. Makoto ran off when I felt like we were getting closer last night, but at least _one of us_ did alright by morning."

Akemi exhaled through her nose, closing her eyes and considering what she meant to say. "In the end, I'm making the choice _for_ you, okay? Makoto is more important, Hamasaki—Even if you want to say otherwise to make me feel special, the fact is that I can take care of myself, I promise; and from here on, I'll have Rika to watch my back, too. Makoto's like you said—sweet and kind, but really she seems a bit naïve. There will come a day where she's counting on you to be there for her, and I want you to tell her 'yes' no matter what the situation is. Please, for your own sake, don't blow it." Akemi reached around to grab Kaine's hair, ruffling it up like she often did to the people she cared about. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Rika and I have some training to do."

"Right...'Training' is what they're calling it now?" Kaine raised his brows and stuck his tongue out like a brat. He was answered by a pillow swung into his face, feathers bursting out to get sucked into his nose, bringing out a sneeze and a nasally shudder. "Blech, okay, okay; have fun, but make it productive. Two weeks sounds like a long time, but I feel like it's already flying by."

Akemi nodded, standing up and stretching herself out from head to toe. "Figure out that Storm Release of yours, alright? It sounds like a cool trick if you can manage to use it without killing yourself ." She opened the door, and both Rika and Makoto spilled into the room and onto their blushing ears as their resting place was swiped from them. The legendary Mori curiosity had struck again. Akemi's brow was twitching at them both. "Tenzo!" Aki called out into the hallway—the other potential eavesdropper was seated patiently with his back against the opposite wall and his arms crossed. "You just let them listen in?"

Tenzo shrugged. "Didn't see the harm in letting them know what was going on. You were talking about the two of them, after all." He then pursed his lips, realizing that his ruse was up.

Akemi flexed her fist. "Ohh, you're lucky we owe you so much or I'd beat the stuffing out of you...I'll bet you've got those little seeds all over the room, don't you?"

Tenzo laughed nervously. "Ahahaha, well, we have to keep our headquarters secure, right?"

Akemi hmph'd, then grabbed Rika by the hand to help her up off the floor, leaving Makoto to pout against the wood. "Well, it's not like I take back anything I said," Akemi said under her breath, then hurried away with Rika in tow, both of the girls a bit flustered.

As the newly-formed couple stormed out, Kaine stood himself up and outfitted himself. He looked down to his long-unworn headband still loyally perched on the end table, but he left it there. It felt like a relic of another time. The next time he planned to wear it, he would probably be standing outside the Truth Village and hoping to be allowed into the barrier under the pretense of reconciliation. "Makoto," Kaine said, stepping over to her, then kneeling down to pick her up off the floor. She had been hiding down there, hoping not to face the man who consumed her thoughts.

When she was pulled up, she asked a question: "You think I'm special?"

Kaine was on the spot again, but he put on his best cool face and nodded. "Like none other," he acknowledged. "In two weeks, I'm going to leave...but I'll be back, just like I promised. And until then, I'm still here."

Makoto had a smile on her face from one ear to the next, her rounded nose bright pink in the slightly cold air of the inn's main second-floor hallway. "I'll bring you some stew while you train," she offered up.

"I'll only accept it if you stay to eat it with me when you do," he replied, brushing his thumb across his cheek to nonchalantly clear away a dangling feather.

The young woman was in high spirits, reaching her hand up to pluck another white feather from the deep blue hair atop her crush's rustled head. It was fairly large, and Makoto took it for herself and tucked it into a fold of her bonnet. "It's a date," she said confidently. "Get stronger, Kaine!"

* * *

**Thanks for reading! The story is getting closer and closer to its ending. As always, the next chapter will be coming very soon. **


	32. Returning Home

**Enjoy!**

* * *

"They're coming for you, you know," Mamban whispered in the dark. He had rather easily slithered along the village to find the door to Minoru's chamber, and was now deep inside of its confines to surround himself with steel, dirt, and emptiness. He could see in the abyss; his eyes were accustomed to such blackness. He had a new mask, nowhere near as gaudy as the first—it was as simple as any other, a uniform oval with two slits for eyes and four individual holes poked near the mouth for breathing. The only thing that set him apart from the rank and file of his men was the starkly red color of the faceplate. "They'll be coming for us _all,_ eventually."

Minoru was seated on his throne, tapping his fingers along the solid armrests and sounding gentle clicks through the hollow of his realm with his tongue. He was monitoring his vast surroundings from within a shell of safety. He pointed his all-seeing Byakugan away from his people, surveying the surrounding trees. Those in the village were set. He could hardly bother with them, anymore—they had been given their tasks, assigned their squadrons and weaponry, and set toward finalizing their preparations. "Does the thought of their retaliation strike fear in you?" Minoru inquired, "I can see that your heart is beating more quickly than it was during our last meeting."

Mamban giggled childishly, rolling his eyes and leaning his head back to thunk the rear of his hooded skull painfully against the steel behind him. "You know me so well, yet not at all, Susumu," the acidic maniac sneered. "There is no need for fear in a life like this. Why waste energy on being frightened when I can devote that power toward spreading the fear myself?" Mamban was on his rear, situated in a cold corner of Minoru's hidden confines, looking about and studying the alarming lack of décor.

The old friends sat together in silence to contemplate their impending doom—it was far too early to move forward, yet playing their full hand was the only remaining option toward achieving their mutual goals. Minoru and Mamban both knew that the Truth's soldiers would need years of training and perhaps decades of field experience before even _hoping_ to compete with the Leaf's power. Larger, longer-established factions had been crushed under the weighted boot of the Hokage or the shadowy Root organization in the past with nary a mention in the history books. Minoru stood up from his chair, growing tired of tapping out a nervous rhythm with a fingertip. "Why are you here, Mamban?"

The latter shrugged in his corner, whimsically rolling his fingers through the windless air as if trying to find a flow. His robe and glove were tight along his left arm, but his right was sleeveless and instead covered from elbow to finger with off-white bandages, tattered from wear and tear. "I'm here because it's safe behind your barrier, my friend," Mamban said in a typically crazed fashion, the essence of his words not the same as the way his tone delivered them. "When I see your cherished people, I see the obvious signs of mobilization...Are you truly ready to send these whelps to their deaths so hastily? That's not like you, Susumu."

"I'm not Susumu; I _never was!_" Minoru snapped, turning his head to point his blindfolded eyes toward the irritating presence, then raising an arm to point his finger as an extension of his persecuting attention. "Just as you are not the boy you were, nor is Cassy the girl we once knew. We are all the ghosts of dead children, Mamban—do not forget that _we_ fight to avenge _their_ needless sacrifice."

Another throaty laugh that rose into an airy hiss came out of from behind the plain red mask on Mamban's ruined face. "You _do_ believe yourself when you speak!" he called out giddily, clapping his hands together with the muffled sound of leather hitting bandages. "It's so refreshing to see such delusions coming from somebody _else_ for a change."

Minoru's brow flexed with agitation beneath his concealing cloth. "I should kill you here and now, Mamban. Justify your existence to me, else I will end your torture as a walking corpse at last." He seemed as serious as could be, ungloved, chapped hands grinding their fingernails into his palms as tight fists.

Mamban moved to stand, drifting from one position to the next on watery legs. When he came upright, he then slouched his left shoulder against the hard surface beside him, speaking as if drunk. "You think that your Magnet Release will save you from me, do you?" His words had venom and his left hand's digits scraped across the solid structure at his side. "There is no doubt about which of us wields more power, Susumu." Where his fingers touched, the metal began to corrugate and flake away as if aging a thousand years in the span of an eye-blink. "If you move to attack, you will die like so many others."

Minoru had not been informed of Mamban's failure at Monolith Point, but he could easily see the results—a new right arm, one that was taxing the wasted, living experiment's chakra and bodily systems as it tried to find a new root. "You can barely stand, yet you threaten me in my own home."

"I hold the aces either way," Mamban shrugged his working shoulder, the right arm coming and going—available to clap moments before yet entirely sagged and lifeless in the span of seconds. "Or do you suppose that your cherub-faced army could resist my men?" Beyond a long pause, there was sudden, boisterous laughter from both sides of the conversation, followed by heads shaking in tandem.

"We're both pathetic," Minoru finally said as his amusement died down and reality once again surfaced. "Sealed underground, anticipating a war without hope of victory, threatening one another with power that we despise. I have always wondered about you—what is your personal truth, Mamban?"

"Spare me the riddles and metaphors," Mamban replied lazily, falling off of his stance and landing hard on his disabled right shoulder. He crawled about the floor using his chin as leverage and breathing raggedly, having become a method actor for his role as a snake in the deadly world. "You already _know_ what I live for," he said sternly through the dots of his mask.

Susumu smiled, calling up a memory as old as his mind would acknowledge as his own. "I do know what you _used_ to cherish, but you have changed so much since then. Have none of your _thoughts_ changed to math?"

The snake became an iguana sunbathing in the dark, flopping onto his back to expose his belly and spreading his arms out wide, regaining some of the feeling in his new limb and flexing the fingers one by one. "My thoughts always change, but there is a single constant. It's not revenge, or chaos, or hatred, or destruction—it's _her._"

Susumu nodded, reaching his hand up to peel away his own mask and tuck it into a fold near the belt of his robe. He crouched down beside Mamban's splayed form, his pair of Byakugan glowing white in the darkness and their tightened pupils focusing on his bitter rival. Susumu spoke as Minoru, unfeeling and final: "She will die with the rest of us. Her body will grow cold, her eyes empty and her heart stopped. How will you react to that?"

Mamban took a moment to think, a rare second of total silence—he didn't even breathe as he pictured the scene as described. He already felt the rage boiling up inside of him. "I will die along with her; how much will my reaction matter then?"

"Will you destroy yourself when she takes her final breath?" Minoru asked, standing himself back up and turning to face the far off door to his chambered prison. There was safety in that barrier, and it would remain safe until one of three things came to pass: Minoru lowering the barrier himself to begin the march on the Leaf, Mamban and his soldiers turning on the Truth for some spiteful principle, or Kakashi's monstrous power tearing straight through the bubble and obliterating everything. He ran his attention across each of the doors lining his hallway, satisfied by what existed around him.

"I've already come close," Mamban admitted, reaching up to pluck away his own red mask for his own benefit. He took harder breaths, then, the stale air of the deep metal tunnel actually soothing his throat as it came in huge gulps. "I lost Goda, and I nearly lost Seshu and Cassy, too. Kakashi and his wood-style lackey are dangerous men. Kaine Hamasaki, too, has unlocked a rather fearsome power."

"Storm Release," Minoru acknowledged with a nod. "Yes, I've seen the components dormant within his body during his tests. Tell me, if you will: what was he doing when he drew upon that energy for the first time? Do you know?"

"Cassy goaded it out of him by my specific instructions. It seems we all noticed his potential before he saw it in himself, and naturally we wanted our own piece of him. When our dear Cassy managed to put him into a corner and force the evolution, there was a young woman there, being threatened. She lives in a place that once existed, a vanished town called Monolith Point—the Hamasaki boy was protecting that girl when he nearly killed Cassy. I had not expected him to experience such a particular awakening, else I would have confronted him myself." Mamban mused out loud, running through the story as his subordinate and lover had told it to him.

"Particular awakening?" Minoru needled, his interest snagged by a dangling hook.

"He has showcased a less common form of Storm Release—it converts chakra in the air into its own power, sucking away the essence of what it touches. Cassy's strings were gobbled up," Mamban made a gesture with two hands like snapping jaws. "Its uncommon power is a wasted gift on such a slow-witted child, however."

"Kaine Hamasaki is brash, but strong. Am I to take yours and Cassy's survival as indication that Kaine has been defeated?" Minoru pondered, a nostalgic pang of nerves sinking his gut a few inches lower. Was he mourning the possible death of a person who was confirmed to be a traitor?

"He should have been dead," Mamban started, "but Cassy likes to play with her food, still."

Minoru flashed back to a time within the broken schoolhouse. Cassy was the oldest, most hardy girl among the children. She had a huge appetite but patently refused to eat _anything_ in a single bite. Even the small, utilitarian food pills with the raunchy flavor were savored slowly by the peculiar thing, rolled along the tongue and licked at like a pungent lollipop. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," Minoru said, shaking his head and wiping the back of his hand down his cheek to clear what felt like a tear. There was no wetness, however; his imagined self was weeping, but his body could no longer keep up.

"She has changed, and I have changed, Seshu and Goda changed; you changed, too, Susumu...but we're not different _people_. We only wear different _masks_." Mamban hummed to himself, lifting his right arm to again test its range of motion. "Susumu _didn't_ die all those years ago; he only realized what the world had always wanted him to become—what _I _had hoped he would turn into. Your mercy once made you weak."

"_There is no mercy_," Minoru bellowed, the echo finding his ears again on its return trip. "Not for anyone. I often ask myself, 'Did mercy ever exist, or was it yet another lie?'"

Mamban snickered, amused by the melodrama. "It intrinsically existed within _you_, whether for better or for worse."

After a long silence: "How do you want this to end?" Minoru asked, feeling like the vulnerable, ignorant child named Susumu again. The fear of death had once been thought to be erased from inside him, but a flash of his life before his own eyes at the hands of Kakashi and his peculiar jutsu had given him another taste of survival instinct. He wanted to live, and he wanted that more than anything else. Primal urges still existed beneath his carefully constructed exterior. "Do you want a miracle to aid us in eliminating the entirety of the Leaf, and for Kakashi's eye to reside in your skull?"

Mamban shook his head. "No, Susumu, I want this to end much more _completely_ than that. I want to assimilate your power into mine. I want your people to become my willing slaves, your curse mark to join my body, and I want your barrier to become my temporary safe haven. I wish to usurp you and yours, to overtake the Leaf with our combined combat strength, and to then to create a safe place...a place where Cassy can comfortably play with her toys." The reptilian male felt his right arm growing stronger. The bone and sinew made itself compatible with the electrical impulses of the brain that was now linked to its altered flesh. "And you, 'Minoru'? What is your ideal outcome?"

"Similar to yours," the Hyuga answered easily. "I expect Kakashi and his ilk to storm our position before we are ready to launch our assault, but we will be waiting for him. I will destroy him from the inside out, and perhaps I will remake him, just as Susumu Hyuga was remade into _me_...I would like to shape him into a tool for my own purposes. Once you have helped me to convert him, I would also like to kill _you_ for the lies you have placed upon myself and my people, all before I exact my final vengeance upon the Leaf."

Mamban laughed utterly, shaking his head left and right and closing his eyes. Bits of dry flesh molted off of his forehead as it scrunched to contort around his flexing facial muscles. "Do you mean the incident with your students and the village west of here? That was nothing serious; a ploy to gain your support, is all—to rob you of resources and to place the Leaf's sights upon you. Your decision to strike a desperate, starving alliance with me and my people was always a part of the plan."

"And what has become of the plan _now_? The enemy will be at our gates within weeks. Can we win against them with what we have?" Minoru asked for the other man's honest opinion, recalling days long past. Mamban's face was wholly different from the round-cheeked, puffy-nosed teen of memory, but small features were still present that sparked recognition. He was clearly the same being, merely altered in an unholy manner, undergoing both a physical and spiritual metamorphosis for the worse.

"Against Kakashi and his misfits? Yes, I know that we can win without question. Beyond that, I have my doubts." Mamban finally felt strong enough to stand up again, rolling onto his torso and flexing his arms to push himself up to his knees, then he slowly stood up with creaking joints and a wince of pain. Every piece of his body felt like it was on the verge of crumbling, as if his entire existence was an ephemeral flower. The time had ticked by so very quickly. "Will you grace us with your esteemed presence when the time comes, or should we expect the middling support of another clone?"

"You held up your end of the bargain—my people have regained their loyalty. There will be no risk of an uprising if and when they see my true face. If _you_ are going to fight by my side, then I too will fight as my own self." Minoru flexed his wrists, then clenched his fingers together before spreading them apart, giving his body a quick test. He had felt rather rusty when he fought Kakashi, but since then he had been moving about more often. Factually, he was beginning to feel very _restless_. The chance to do battle again using his own body excited him in ways that it shouldn't have. "I want to fight with Kakashi again."

"Sadly, I have already made a promise to Cassy that she will be given the first chance to play with him. There's a long line forming behind her when it comes to tackling the legendary copy ninja." Mamban sighed, reaching for his mask where it was lying on the floor. He pushed it up against his face and wrapped it around his head to secure it in place. His hair existed in small patches, fuzzy black tufts sprouting where the scalp had not been completely peeled away. "Rest assured, Kakashi will die—the only uncertainty surrounds who will be the one to deliver the final blow."

Minoru hummed, bringing a hand up to clutch his chest. He could feel the pulses of his curse mark resonating with the two that now adorned Mamban's patchwork body, timed asynchronously to his heartbeat and giving him the feeling of being two different people. Was he Susumu, or was he Minoru? "We may still die _together_, after all this time, Mamban," he said into the other person's red mask, the words bouncing off of the reinforced porcelain to form another echo down the chamber. "For what it's worth...I am sorry that I abandoned you all to become the white snake's subjects."

Mamban smirked under his curved hiding place, the dome moving with him when his head shook. "Orochimaru is quite an artist, I would like to say. His process is regrettable and the success rate is _comically _bad, yet the final results are undeniable."

"He turned carefree little Cassy into a killer; she isn't who she _was _anymore." Minoru reminded the other. "We're all _nothing_, now."

"You're wrong...she's _exactly_ who she was, and who she was _always_ going to be. She merely has a new job with a certain skill set as a prerequisite!" Mamban sounded enthusiastic, spreading his arms wide and opening his palms to the dry air. "And lighten up, Susumu!" Mamban stepped around his tense partner and set his hands on his shoulders, patting him condescendingly on the back along the way. "You're strong enough to face the approaching onslaught with some pride in what you have accomplished. Risen from the ranks of the Hyuga to become noteworthy, you earned a squad of your own as a mere child...then survived Orochimaru and Danzo's dastardly machinations, created a village of willing followers, even endured a battle with Kakashi Hatake with only some lost dignity and only _somewhat-_soiled pants...you are quite a capable soldier in your own right."

Minoru found it difficult to be flattered by the backhanded remarks, snipping the inside of his lower lip between firm teeth, and the touch on his shoulders nearly set him off. "Leave me be. If you insist on poking around the village, please do it in a place where I won't have to hear your _voice _for a while."

Mamban laughed openly, jostling Minoru with his clutch on the shoulders and then stepping away, moving to leave the sanctum. "Oh, very well. I'll begin choosing the ones I like the best for when I make your soldiers into mine. One of them might even get to keep a personality as a replacement for Goda...the team feels woefully empty without a fourth member."

Minoru was silent as he watched the volatile slaver make the long journey out into the sun.

* * *

The sound of skin and bone colliding had become routine over the preceding thirteen days. Rika and Akemi were still working together to hone the student's fighting style up close. They also worked on routinely expending Rika's chakra as a means to deepen her reserves and strengthen the force of her flames through repetition. Rika learned quickly, but was still not strong enough to face substantial threats. Akemi was pleased with the progress they made, either way, and with a final punch that ended with the fists of both women in a solid deadlock, the day was called. "Good work," Akemi said, grabbing the base of her shirt and pulling it up to wipe her forehead clean of sweat. Her skin had a glistening sheen from head to toe, a glimpse caught along her stomach before she dropped the pink cloth of her garb to once again hide herself from view. "You're not going to be dead weight tomorrow, at least," she added as a teasingly disappointed but honest jab.

"I'll leave the heavy hitters to you, Kaine, Kakashi, and Tenzo. Just let me know where you want me, and I'll go there," Rika said with a salute against her chest, wanting to fall onto her knees with exhaustion but putting herself in a mindset where collapse was not an option. Their return to the Truth was going to happen in just under twenty-four hours, with Kaine serving as the spearhead. The plan had already been worked out over the days, and the details were burned into the minds of all five participants.

Akemi smirked, given an easy cue. "Well, right now, I want you right _here_," she winked with a curled finger, and Rika smiled warmly before closing the training gap and giving a reconciliation symbol, locking two fingers with Akemi's extended hand, then pulling the ritual into a full on hug-and-kiss, sweat dripping down both of their faces and staining their clothes in unflattering fashion. The air was cool, closer to _cold_, but they had kept quite warm during their practice.

Akemi lured her student by the hand into the shade of a leafless tree, sinking down to sit on her rump against its bark and pulling Rika into her lap. "I don't want to say it tomorrow morning, because it'd be bad luck if I did...but I just want you to know that we're _both_ going to survive. No matter _what_ it takes, I'm going to make sure that neither of us has to live on without the other."

Rika blinked, hearing a bizarre optimism on her sensei's voice. Things felt so different from before: '_We don't get to enjoy the people we love,'_ she had said. Savoring the peaceful togetherness, Rika hated that the day of reckoning was already only one sleepless night away. The past two weeks had flown by far too quickly for her tastes, the days and evenings having been the best that she could remember having, all thanks to that first kiss and what followed between herself and her teacher. "Are you saying you can't live without me, Aki?" Rika asked, smirking with a wisecracking glint in her eyes.

"I'm saying I'd rather not _have _to," Akemi replied, reaching her hand up to ruffle Rika's curls, sighing in a way that was content but thoughtful. "You asked me why I always call him 'Hamasaki,' and not Kaine, right?"

Rika thought for a moment, then nodded as she recalled the question. She had dwelled on it, but left it alone after a while. "Yeah, why is that?"

Akemi closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the tattered bark. It pinched her hair and tugged on some blonde strands, but the little stings felt oddly pleasant, a natural reminder of being alive—and of being free to act as she wanted to act. For most of her life, she had been under Minoru's spell, in one way or another. Feeling the soothing _doubt _in her mind was an odd thing to cherish. She continued talking to Rika. "Since we were kids, me and Hamasaki have been like siblings. We introduce each other as brother and sister, we fight all the time over stupid things, and we always end up trusting what the other says and does, even if it seems insane. And if he broke something of mine, I'd run off and tell Minoru—he was kind of like our dad, see?"

Rika nodded, turning to put her arms around Aki's waist and shoulder, nuzzling her face against her partner's neck, settling in for the story and mumbling against soft skin. "Sounds like me and Makoto."

Akemi was happy with the snuggling, despite smelling rather rugged after the long training session. Rika was used to it by then, as their respite against the same oak tree had been a daily ritual since the two-week notice was given. "Anyway, he's Kaine Hamasaki, and I'm Akemi Yamaguchi...we're brother and sister, but we're not _really, _you know? When I'm around him, I feel like I'm not alone...like I've got family, somebody to come home to, someone who looks forward to seeing me again. But I always knew underneath it all that it wasn't the truth. Minoru wasn't my father, Hamasaki wasn't my brother...we were all just outcasts, fighting to survive, clinging to one another for the sake of convenience. I call him Hamasaki all the time because if I call him Kaine, I might accidentally_ fool myself_ into thinking that we're actually part of the same family...that somebody actually cares."

Rika whimpered quietly as she took in the sad reasoning, clutching her damaged Aki as if she could squeeze the hurt out of the stern muscles; she wanted knead them into softness and happiness. When Akemi spoke next, Rika wondered if perhaps her simple method had worked; the dour, loss-riddled shinobi had lighter, more hopeful things to say. Even her voice sounded more soothing to Rika's wind-burned ears. "That's what I _thought_, anyway. Keeping his family name in mind didn't do much to stop me from becoming dependent on him as a part of my life. The day he left and didn't come back, I was worried, but got over it...but when he got back two weeks later, I figured something out: I realized that I hated him for leaving me behind; for leaving me by myself." Aki squeezed her arm around Rika's waist, huddling her inward. "Initially, I only took you on as a personal responsibility because I needed somebody else to lean on...just as a crutch until _he_ came back."

Rika blinked, still hidden in the fold of Akemi's neck and shoulder, but she perked a soft eye up to look at the closed lips on her sensei's face—it was a smile that lacked the agony that it typically displayed. The permanently scarred sadness in Akemi's eyes, the deep sorrow that Rika had feared would never be fixed, seemed to have dissipated. It still existed, but its presence was finally outweighed. Rika fought an impish smile, but it formed, and she whispered something sly. "I thought you took me on because I managed to punch you in the face."

Akemi pursed her lips and clenched her jaw, raising a hand to lift an authoritative finger. "You and I both know that it shouldn't have happened that way!" she asserted, then ran the back of her finger down Rika's cheek, tracing down her shoulder and over the exposed, gnarly scar that trailed along the inside of her elbow and along her forearm. "Maybe it was fate, though; do you believe in things like fate?"

Rika hummed weakly, still smiling but closing her eyes. Being in Akemi's grasp turned her into pure peace; she heard the wind rustling bare branches, felt the vibrations of the trickling stream through the soil beneath her bared feet when she kicked her sandals off. "No, I don't...but I'm pretty sure that Makoto does."

"Neither do I," Akemi revealed, but then she shrugged. "I do believe in luck, though. It's kind of the same thing, but it's not all planned out ahead of time—you and I got _lucky_ that Hamasaki ran off, _lucky_ that I ended up taking over your training full-time. If things hadn't happened in the exact way that they happened, with the exact right kind of luck on both our ends, we might not be here right now, covered in goopy sweat and rubbing it all over each other." Akemi brushed her wet cheek on Rika's to emphasize.

Rika sneered, crunching her nose up with slight distaste. "You sure do paint a pretty picture," she muttered with a small amount of sarcasm, but she reciprocated the face-to-face caress without pause. Her head felt light; full of air. The moment was bliss, and the wind fluttered her clothing up in just the nicest way, wicking away sweat from her back and soothing her spirit after the aching training session. She felt the strong hold of her partner and gave a strong one in return. Her lips parted: "I love you, Aki," Rika whispered as an afterthought into the nearest ear. It was the first time she said it, but like the kiss, it came so naturally that she hadn't even felt it leaving her lips until her brain caught up to her heart. She felt herself gasp as if she wanted to take it back, feeling fearful of putting forth a potentially unwanted burden. Though Rika felt safe in her sensei's arms and welcome in her bed, the lingering concern was just how deep the feelings ran in return.

As if she hadn't even noticed her student's silent regrets, Aki murmured an easy, frictionless "I love you too, Rika," with closed eyes. After a moment, she gave it more thought, realizing as well that she had confessed those feelings for the first time. With a nibble on her lower lip, she finally felt safe to talk about what went through her head. "That's why I saved you from Mamban back then; it's the reason why I chose you over the others. For a while, I didn't know what to call it, or how to respond to it. I had never felt that sensation before, but I _get it_ now. I picked you over them and risked my life to get you out of danger because I _love_ you."

"Aki..." Rika breathed with fulfilled longing, swallowing heavily and then reaching up to bunch her sensei's blonde hair in her small hand, bringing herself higher to start a long, meaningful kiss.

* * *

Kaine was hard at work, finally starting to feel confident in his control over his kekkei genkai. Tenzo had finished his necessary preparations for fighting Minoru and was overseeing the rogue ninja's efforts. His clouds were forming in smaller, more concise patterns and following the will of their creator more reflexively. Targets had been set up; make-shift dummies were created out of Tenzo's wood style and propped threateningly in a circle around Kaine.

With a clap of his hands and the focus of his chakra, Kaine managed to form a cloud that dispersed into seven smaller ones, each latching onto the wooden dummies and seeking to drain them of chakra. Tenzo had fed just a bit of his own energy into each effigy for the sake of testing the nature of Kaine's Storm Release—he had seen specific the variation a handful of times before, and knew that one of its key differences from the more common variety was its ability to utilize exterior sources of chakra.

Once the dummies had been sucked dry, Kaine flexed his arms together and gave a cry of effort, exerting his command over the puffy black leeches and causing them to erupt—powerful but concise flashes of liquid lightning jolted through each prop, skewering them with hard light and then causing the formed lances to explode violently, leaving behind nothing of Tenzo's craftsmanship and a crater deep enough to serve as a fox hole where each of the seven stand-ins once resided. Kaine was worn, but not completely exhausted. With panting, dry breath, he looked to Tenzo with a mouth hanging open and teeth showing in a childlike grin. "I'm getting pretty good at this, huh?" the young man gloated through heaves of his chest.

"Not bad at all, Kaine," Tenzo confirmed, stepping in to inspect the damage. The craters were deep but restrained; the radius stayed low and the power was focused. Beyond a certain point, the grass wasn't even scorched. "You've gotten better at focusing a lot of power into a smaller space for a more effective burst. How are you doing on chakra?"

Kaine flexed his hand, looking down the length of his arm and keeping his grin. "Strong," he replied, opening up the palm of each hand and forming thick lightning at the end of each fingertip. "You can just leave Minoru to _me_."

Tenzo smirked, shaking his head and walking up to Kaine before clapping a supportive hand on the youth's shoulder. "Don't underestimate him. Try not to forget that he isn't the man you knew. He has the power of one of Orochimaru's curse marks, and a kekkei genkai as rare as yours. Thanks to Kakashi's plan, it shouldn't bother our weaponry too much, but he'll have his own tricks to pull."

"Let him try. I used to be afraid of him, but I'm not going to give him the satisfaction of _ever_ making me afraid again, Tenzo. Minoru is going down in a _hard_, _humiliating_ way." Kaine crushed both of his hands together, the twin charges of lightning turning into a single spark that fizzled into a thick lump and then exploded in a flash of bright white light, leaving behind a few yellowed sparks that drifted through the air and turned harmless before touching the arid forest floor. "The rest of you can mop up the easy ones."

Tenzo looked a bit less confident in that outcome. "We'll see how things go. Remember, Kaine: if you run into trouble, we're in this together. Don't hesitate to call for help if you need it."

Kaine made a tsk with his tongue, shaking his head and running his scarred fingers through the semi-short clumps of his ocean-blue hair. "Fine, I won't forget...but I won't need _help_, either."

"Speaking of which, since we're all in this together..." Tenzo reached into a pouch hanging off his hip, digging through it to find something solid and metal. "Here," he said, offering the produced bundle toward Kaine.

As he took it, Kaine unwrapped the white cloth and found black cloth inside—a strip adorned with a solid metal rectangle that was engraved with the symbol of the leaf, its flourishing spiral turning into a sharpened point and an angled stem. Kaine looked confused. "What's this about, Tenzo?" He hastily folded the headband back into its white holding cloth and pushed it back toward the man who offered it.

Refusing to take it back, Tenzo crossed his arms along his chest. "When Kakashi sent Pakkun to request reinforcements, he also included you, Akemi, and Rika's names on a list of recommendations for ninja who should be promoted to Genin of the Leaf. It's a bit unorthodox, since neither of you were ever part of a graduating academy class, but...Lady Tsunade is willing to accept you on Kakashi's good word."

"The Hokage is willing to induct us as shinobi on nothing but Kakashi's word?" Kaine looked surprised. He had seemingly underestimated the respect the Leaf had for the silver-haired Sharingan legend.

Tenzo cleared his throat, waving a humble hand. "Well, I threw my name on the document, too. It wasn't _just _Kakashi's influence."

Kaine chuckled, resigning to taking the bundle, but leaving it wrapped. "I'm honored, really, but I don't think I'm the right kind of material. I was a part of Root, remember? The darkness?"

"So was I," Tenzo turned his back, looking up toward the clear blue sky. "Kakashi helped me get away from all of that. Many of us in the Leaf Village owe Kakashi our entire lives; he has saved countless people and accomplished innumerable missions that nobody else would take, missions that were called impossible. Like you say, he has darkness in him, but so do we all. It's just part of being human."

Kaine clutched the gift. It was the symbol of allegiance to the Leaf, but more importantly, it was also the symbol of Kakashi and Tenzo's faith in him. He groaned with conflict. "This isn't how things were supposed to be...I was supposed to be Minoru's general, and I was supposed to take revenge on the Leaf. Akemi, too—we were raised to hate you, to hate everything about _all of you_." Kaine was about to crush the covered headband in his harsh grip. "It's the symbol of everything I've _always hated_...so why is it, Tenzo, that I sincerely want to wear it on my head?"

"I can't answer that for you, Kaine. It's your choice—in the end, it's only an invitation, not a draft." Tenzo yawned, watching as the blue sky turned orange and the sun began to set behind the gently rising hills on the horizon. "At any rate, you're the most important piece of the puzzle right now—you're going to have to get us into the barrier. Get some rest so you're thinking clearly tomorrow."

"Yeah..._rest_..." Kaine pondered, looking down to the shimmering thing that was wrapped tight in his palm. It felt heavy in his hand, its weight not at all coming from the materials used to construct it. He ambled off, thinking to himself that he wasn't going to be able to get much 'rest' that night.

* * *

Within Monolith Point, more and more people had woken up from their enslavement thanks to Kakashi's sealing technique. The curse marks that flooded their chakra networks and forced their actions could no longer reach their targets, leaving the controlling efforts powerless. Beyond that, it was a matter of patience, but almost everybody had become aware of themselves again, including Rika and Makoto's parents, who were busily serving guests.

Kaine walked into the front door of the inn, and it was more crowded than usual—there were hardly any other places to go, since a majority of the buildings were vaporized and their foundations were turned to pools of slowly-evaporating acid. Weaving through the crowd and being recognized by a few people, Kaine ignored them and headed upstairs—that was, until he got stopped by the local blacksmith, owner of one of the few surviving structures aside from the inn and hospital. "Say, you're that boy who's been using my tools at night!" the gruff, stocky smith called out and offered a grand wave, beckoning Kaine closer. "C'mere, let me show you to my friends. They're up and about as of this morning!" The smith was seated with a few men and women, all of different shapes and sizes, a diverse group.

Kaine cleared his throat, not quite wanting to seem rude, but also not in the mood to deal with a bunch of new faces on such an important night. "I, uh...well, my name's Kaine Hamasaki, but I really need to get going." He rubbed the back of his head, making eye contact with each surprisingly-happy, drunken face. Perhaps the drunkenness was a good thing, despite how loud it made the lobby when everybody was gathered all at once.

"Bah, fine; you all done with what you were doing?" the smith asked as a follow-up, waving a dismissive hand and returning to a frothy, repugnant-smelling drink.

Kaine nodded. "Yeah, finished early this morning...thanks again for letting me put your shop to use; it has been a great help."

"Think nothin' of it, kid," the middle-aged bull answered, turning away and returning to the conversation already in progress. Kaine blew a sigh of relief, reaching to his hip and his own pouch, heading up the stairs to find the room that Akemi and Rika had been moved into.

Kaine knocked on the door, and small footsteps opened it up to show Rika, dressed in a loose pajama robe, looking rather at peace with herself. "Can I come in for a minute, Rika?" he asked, taking a step inside before getting the answer. Akemi was in there, too, getting changed. Kaine caught a glimpse of her before she draped a robe on, but she didn't seem to mind as she spoke to him without missing a second.

"What's on your mind, Kaine?" Akemi asked, foregoing the 'Hamasaki' clause in light of recent events. Kaine blinked, stammering for a second as he tried to understand what she had just said. It threw him for a loop, but Akemi turned to tease him with a smirk. "Oh come on, you've seen me naked before; not that special." she chided him, then stepped over in her newly-donned, inn-provided nightie to look at Kaine's opening pouch. "What's in there?"

"Well, for you, I added that bit you wanted on your knife," Kaine answered, plucking the familiar dagger out from within his bag and offering it to Akemi by the handle. She took it to inspect it. "And I finished the important stuff making Rika's; it's not my best work, yet, but I'll refine it later. It's sturdy enough for combat, just not pretty enough to display on the wall."

Each knife was held out by its respective owner, and Rika thumbed along the edge of her new blade, cutting herself intentionally so that a tiny trickle of blood went down the shaft. "Ohhh, it's sharp," she hummed. The shape was nearly identical to Akemi's, though it was a half an inch shorter with a light brown handle instead of a black one. "Thanks, Kaine, it's exactly what I wanted!" Rika tucked it into the provided sheathe and then rested the whole package on the end table beside her and Aki's shared bed.

Kaine nodded to Rika, then looked to Akemi. "Is that how you wanted it?" he asked, looking to the base of her knife's handle. It was a small change, easy to make. A loop through the bottom of the hilt, thick enough to run a strong thread through.

"It'll do," Akemi confirmed, tossing the blade up and down, testing it to be sure that it was still properly balanced despite the shift in weight. "I owe you one."

Kaine looked toward the table off to the side, spotting two Leaf headbands identical to the one that he tucked away, laid out side by side. Nearby was Akemi's long-unworn Truth headband, collecting dust since the night Kakashi revealed Minoru's secret. "Are you going to wear them?" Kaine asked Akemi and Rika, and for a moment all three people in the room were staring at the shiny symbols.

"Yeah," Rika said, stepping over to the table and nodding, reaching down to apply the wrapping to her forehead. She didn't tie it into place so close to bedtime, but she did look into a nearby mirror to see how she looked. "It makes me look tough," she said, an innocent grin to accompany her playfulness.

Akemi nodded, too. "I'm with Rika...it _does_ make us look tough," she confirmed, taking the second headband and draping it over her forehead to match her lover. The two of them looked the same along the foreheads, and they also had those complementary tear-drop-shaped scars across their necks in pink, bumpy relief. "Tenzo said that you got one, too..." Akemi added, taking down the forehead protector when she saw Kaine's twitching brow.

Kaine nodded, a bit surprised to see Akemi adopt it so fast. He had quickly noticed that she had been different since Mamban attacked, and he figured that it had absolutely everything to do with Rika. "I don't know if I'm going to wear it or not, but yeah...he gave me one."

"What've you got to lose?" Akemi asked, shrugging one sloped shoulder.

Kaine didn't answer that question, his lip snarling slightly as he considered abandoning all of his hatred in such an uneventful manner. He head dreamed of returning to the Leaf someday as its destroyer, and as he thought deeper, the only reason he could imagine was some twisted recollection of being a part of Danzo's sick game of pitting children against one another in fights to the death. In his scouting missions, the parts of them that weren't wiped from memory, he saw happy people and charitable ninjas. Kakashi and Tenzo were strong, yet humble. Already, they had saved the lives of himself, Akemi, Rika, and even Makoto. They helped him train, even before earning any promise of loyalty or obedience.

With a moment of clarity, Kaine realized that the Leaf was never his enemy at all. His enemies were Minoru, Mamban...and Danzo Shimura.

* * *

In the morning, hours after waking, Kaine found himself standing in front of the barrier that blocked the Village Hidden by Truth from the sight of the outside world and kept it protected from attacks. He knew that Minoru had already seen him; Susumu Hyuga was his proper name, and the Byakugan was all-seeing. With a deep breath, an attempt to quell his harsh nerves, Kaine Hamasaki formed a familiar sequence of hand signs and then slapped the ground in front of the barrier. The invisible border shimmered, giving way to the trapped waves of light beyond and allowing entry into the village.

Wearing his neglected, stone-formed headband that was engraved with a cloud being impaled by a lightning bolt, Kaine Hamasaki returned home.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Leave a review if you liked it! As always, the next update is coming soon.**


	33. A New Personal Truth

**Enjoy! Thank you for the support, everybody!**

* * *

While Kaine stepped through the barrier, his loyal hawk Astor swooped down to join him as the invisible chakra shut itself tightly and silently behind him like a sliding glass door. With his companion on his shoulder, most likely oblivious to what was being planned, Kaine gulped, feeling uneasy about being trapped within Minoru's clutches—but it wasn't just that. He also noticed the countless robed figures in plain white masks that lined the trees, perched on roofs, and oversaw the armory and mess hall. Kaine was dressed in his old clothes, the dark blue vest tainted with deep patches of purple-looking blood that refused to come out, the black under-suit that ventured from neck to wrist and ankle. To top it off, his head was protected at last by his very own headband, its stone symbol worn proudly despite his troubled history with its origins. Over his back was a sheathe that contained a sword, its handle brown and wrapped in simple cloth to protect his grip.

Kaine took another step, feeling a crunch under his feet; there were leaves strewn about. They were trapped inside the barrier, swirling around with the wind and forming vortexes along the rounded rim of the invisible blockade. The last time Kaine found himself in the Truth Village, he was regarded with little interest—he had felt quite at home. In the new light, oppressively watched by strangers and beheld with skepticism by his own people, he felt like an outsider. Perhaps he always felt that way.

The first person to greet him was Medo, most likely dispatched by Minoru as a welcoming party. "Well, here's a face I never thought I'd see again," the older tutor declared with a smug grin and sleeveless, folded arms. "You oughta come with me, Kaine; Master Minoru's been worried sick about you." A beckoning hand raised to wave Kaine along, and he gave a casual reply, as if it were the same as it had always been.

"Already? I just got back, Medo; can't you tell him I'd like to take a nap, first?" complained the returning traitor. He played dumb, which was something that came easily to him. "What does he even want?"

Medo curled a corner of his lip, chewing on the inside of his cheek to idly display his annoyance. "You know the rules. Whenever you come back, you've gotta check in with Master Minoru in person. Though, since you're _you,_ I'll turn the other way if you want to take a quick look around. I'm sure you've noticed that things have changed a little bit in your absence."

Kaine nodded, regarding the silent watchmen that peppered the cozy landscape. "Yeah, that's kinda hard to miss, don't you think?" said Kaine, running a nervous hand through his hair. He hoped that he could credit the unusual presence to his unease, skirting the suspicions of his return, but he was ready for things to go south rather quickly. There was a nostalgic feeling as he waved goodbye to Medo, the other man letting him pass with a polite nod and a welcome back. Given freedom to roam the village, Kaine set himself to the task of taking a headcount.

Dozens, perhaps even hundreds; the Truth had ninety-three members worthy of some form of combat, and then there were others like Tito who were of little use. Oddly, Kaine didn't see any of that category in his initial sweep, and the notion made him curious. All the usual roamers were out and about, strapped up with weaponry, body armor, and their headbands. One thing he had missed about the Truth was its unquestionable variety—every forehead protector was unique, including his own, and a glance at one's brow could convey a wealth of flavorful information.

During Kaine's survey, he heard a voice that sent a horrible chill through his spine. The tone itself was saccharine, like the honey that lined a flytrap. "There's the last person I ever expected to walk so casually into this place," said the female voice, the mouth that called him out breathing beside his ear. He hadn't even heard her when she snuck up behind him. Kaine started to reach for his weapon, but he refrained—it was no use to start a fight while he was a caged bird.

"Cassy," Kaine muttered with a sneer. "The feeling's mutual; who even invited you here?"

"Why, your esteemed Master Minoru gave me permission to roam free," she hissed, maskless and admittedly beautiful. Kaine could feel the heat of her as she stood behind him, a bit shorter than he was but standing on her toes to nudge the lobe of his ear with her angled nose. "He said I could pick a few that I liked and take them home with me," she sang. "Wanna be one of the ones I pick?"

Kaine flexed both fists, inhaling hard through his nose and trying to suck down the urge to crush her throat. He defiantly kept his face forward, though her cinnamon skin was visible by the corner of his eye. "I think I'll pass; you're supposed to be dead, aren't you?"

Cassy tsked, patting Kaine on the shoulder and stepping back from him, still out of sight. With some distance between them, Kaine felt comfortable turning around to face her, but he kept his best expression of displeasure. His jaw was tight, chin jutted out to look particularly perturbed. He had a feeling that the woman didn't take rejection all that well. She probably didn't like it when her prey turned around and nearly killed her, either. Running her hands down her hips and tapping her fingers against the black leather wrap that held her robe around her waist, Cassy looked to the ground with regret. "You'll come around, kid. I get the feeling that we'll be seeing a _lot_ of one another from now on," she trailed off with a wink, turning around to sashay her hips and give a last, longing look over her shoulder before sauntering off someplace else.

"Don't count on it," Kaine muttered to himself, keeping the volume down and beginning to walk again. He passed Rika's empty hut, falling apart after a few weeks of abandonment. Nearby, covered slightly by gathered, crunchy leaf flakes, he also saw Mako and Fiona's shared building—he allowed himself to wonder about them, never getting the chance to know them very well. He was thankful that they seemed to still be alive, though their condition was far worse than the other victims of Mamban's control. While the folks of Monolith Point had awoken, the couple taken earlier had been in a sleep like death since Kakashi pushed Mamban back. Kaine wondered if they would ever open their eyes again.

Beyond the memories of others, Kaine finally reached his own door. Astor lifted from his shoulder when the door was opened and the owner stepped inside—it had been less than a month since he last entered through that door, but the shifted perspective granted by his own realizations and Kakashi's discoveries gave the whole air of his home an entirely different filter. The dry air was full of dust and debris from the encompassing forest, his table and bed supporting the nests of all manners of insects—the population of bugs had been increasing again since the food shortage was solved. In practice, very few people chose to eat crickets when a plate stacked with fresh meat lingered a few steps away from them.

Kaine reached to one of the pouches in his tattered flak jacket, checking his supplies and finding them where they needed to be. He particularly checked the pack at the rear of his waist, feeling for the weaponry that was most important. Satisfied by what he felt, he decided that he wouldn't need any of his supplies. He had known how well he was stocked when he entered, but some ethereal force had pulled him home—he missed his old life, regardless of its condition as an elongated untruth. Things were much easier when he called himself Minoru's left hand; when his only duties were to gather bright-eyed, enthusiastic recruits and then show off in front of them. He felt free in that life, but the spectre of Minoru's mind-numbing agent had been a shadow that was too large to see from inside. Only when he stepped away—far away—did he see the darkness as it loomed.

Still, he missed it. He longed for its return. He wanted things to be as they were. Standing there in his own home, built by his very hands, he thought about going to sleep and remaining there for the rest of his days. Maybe his nightmarish weeks had only been honest nightmares brought about by eating spoiled eggs. If he were to lie down in bed and close his eyes as hard as he could, would he have woken up in the hospital with a fresh knife wound in his gut and Akemi Yamaguchi's obnoxiously arrogant smirk hanging above him? He was too afraid to try; too afraid that it might have worked, and that everything he had learned might have been his own overactive imagination. Perhaps Kakashi was merely a figment of his imagination, some twisted representation of his own self set upon his dreams to smack him into uncertainty.

How convenient it was that whenever Kaine had doubts, Kakashi's masked, one-eyed face showed up to remind him of how things were. He thought about the story of Obito Uchiha, as told to him before he got that crawling sensation that he needed to go to Makoto's side—he mulled over the likelihood of truly having that alarming urgency popping into his head. It was impossible for him to have known that she was in danger without any physical reason, wasn't it? She behaved like she was his dream, too. She said all the things he liked, told him everything he needed to hear. Even when he departed on what might have been a suicide mission, she had the perfect thing to say to keep him hopeful: _'When you come back with all your friends from your village, I'll have mom and dad help me whip up enough stew for everybody to fill up on!'_

Her smile was infectious, and all his worries had vanished when she gave him that closed-eyed, wide-mouthed grin of assurance. She had been through a special kind of hell thanks to Mamban, yet her optimism was unshaken and her eyes were still the clearest, most placid pools he had ever seen. Perhaps that was what he loved—maybe _everything_ was in her eyes. Could it have been so easy, so simple? Did he love that girl like Akemi loved Rika? He regretted that he didn't tell Makoto about how he truly felt before he walked away. She had brought him stew every day as he trained, but their chatter was always frivolous. Talk of food, of the weather, of how silly some of the clouds looked while they lingered in the sky far away from human worries. Kaine had always envied and hated the clouds.

When he carved his headband symbol, there were a few things that motivated him. His natures were the obvious reason—lightning mixed with water, a raincloud impaled by electricity. The less-obvious reason, Kaine Hamasaki's 'personal truth,' was a hatred of the clouds and their disconnection from emotion and hardship. What was a cloud but blobs of water gathered together to drift by happenstance through the sky, clinging to one another until it was decreed that they would separate? Did the droplets ever mourn for their fallen? If by some vast coincidence the very same droplets wound up again in the same cloud, did they share the stories of their journeys?

Kaine had always hated the rain. He knew that it was silly of a man whose primary nature was water to dislike his own element, but the rain was a constant reminder of his loneliness. The falling fluid was accompanied by so many others that were identical in form and function; when they splashed together, they coalesced into a unified existence to run a path together and spill into the ocean. They inevitably became a part of something greater. Kaine Hamasaki had always _wanted_ to be a part of something greater, yet he had been betrayed time and time again. Minoru was the final straw; the hopeful Kaine had spent years, nearly a decade, under the man's care and tutelage, and yet the ultimate betrayal somehow felt unsurprising.

Humans were not like water. They did not mesh unquestioningly together; they bounced off of one another, as if each one was made of an entirely different material. Human emotions were a barrier like a waterproof coating along a roof. Minoru had attempted a forced paradise—rather than embrace the emotions that made humanity so chaotic, he manufactured his own 'glue' to hold them together with himself serving as the keystone. Kaine was angry when he pictured it. He had every intention of shattering that keystone with his own raw knuckles.

He took a final look at his handmade home, its furniture either jagged or smooth, a collage of his advancement as a craftsman from childhood to the present day. He admired himself as a successful product, but the hand that forged him was impossible to pin down. Did he invent himself, or was he no more than a careful machination of Minoru who had been snatched and resculpted by Kakashi Hatake and Tenzo? Had Makoto been unknowingly building him all along to finally become his reason for living? Was it _her_ voice that had always taught him to survive?

"It's time," Kaine muttered to his empty house. "I probably won't see you again, so take care of yourself, yeah?" said the conflicted young man. That was what he wanted to say to Makoto—he had no expectations of surviving the coming battle, but he had made his choice. He promised his return to that pristine young woman, the all-consuming presence that shaped all of his decisions. His promise may have been a lie, and yet he wanted to see her smile and be grateful. With those broad, sparkling eyes open and laid upon his face, Kaine could say nothing but hopeful things. "Take care of yourself," he repeated, reaching a hand out to stroke an invisible, ethereal cheek. His rational mind told him that nobody could hear him; the walls had no eyes, no ears. His heart, though, hoped to find Makoto's over the miles and convey that last message just as she had perhaps called for his help beside the stream.

_'I'll see you again tonight,' _Kaine had told her as he turned to leave with a lighthearted wave. He had always put forth a false confidence; years of practice had made it difficult to turn that facade off in front of others. Akemi and Rika had been there, too, clad in their shiny new Leaf headbands and looking like a fated duo, joined at the hip and hand and giving one another subtle little glances that spoke volumes. Kaine could not bear to risk shaking their resolve by exuding his doubts. He boldly saw himself as a newly budding tree, the roots that reached out to hold the soil together, to protect it from turning over in powerful winds. He wondered to himself if Minoru had been well-intentioned in the beginning. He made a mental note to ask that question as he finally stepped out of his house and into the cool breeze of the autumn afternoon.

With the finality of a closed door at his back and the daunting future standing before him, he took a deep breath of oppressive air. It was heavy against him, settling at the bottom of his lungs like condensed filth. More than he hated the rain, more than he hated the masked sorrow in Makoto's eyes as he left, he hated the Village Hidden by Truth. He wanted to dismantle it with his scarred hands, and with that characteristically arrogant ambition swollen in his mind, he set himself on a quick path to Minoru's chamber.

* * *

"Do you think he'll pull it off?" Rika asked impatiently, arms hugged around a tree branch a few miles from the rim of the Truth Village's barrier. She was frequently repositioning her new headband, accidentally loosening it with every nudge. Akemi was always there to redo the knot behind her head, taking care of her needs like a newborn, but always keeping a kind smile on her face despite the repetition.

"He'll do it," Tenzo answered, eyes closed and hands formed into a seal that aided his concentration. "If he doesn't, he'll never live it down, right?" he played as he tried to satisfy his stakeout's restlessness. Kakashi was off on his own, as usual, doing something that was probably important but perhaps a little bit eccentric. "I just hope he does it soon. The longer he's in there, the more likely it'll be that he does something irrational."

Akemi scoffed, sinking against the nook of a tree, her back scratched idly by the rough bark when she shrugged. "He's a screwball and he does stupid things, but Kaine's my brother and he made a promise to us all that he would bring that barrier down. Besides, even if he mucks it up, you said Kakashi can still get us in, right?"

Tenzo looked down to the back of his hand as if monitoring something, then he hummed his affirmation. "As a last resort. The success chance of this assault hinges entirely on two things: Kaine's ability to drop the barrier, and the arrival of reinforcements from the Leaf. If Kakashi is forced to tear the barrier open, he'll be out of commission for a few minutes, and that might make the difference between victory and defeat. Likewise, if we get no support, the battle will be much harder. I know that we can win no matter what, but there is a chance that we'll see some casualties."

"The same as any mission," Akemi said thoughtfully, running her hand through the back of Rika's hair after once again re-tying the new headband. "Tell me about the Byakugan, Tenzo; you're part of the Leaf, so you should know any of its weaknesses, yeah?"

Tenzo shrugged, closing his eyes and keeping his ears open for the signal. "I know that it can be strained by overuse, but if Susumu has one of Orochimaru's curse marks, that might not be an issue for him. Otherwise, there's a blind spot along the back of the head that radiates out in a cone. A skilled user who has mastered the vision, though, has options to counter that limitation. Surprise attacks rarely work, and the full range of vision means that it's nearly pointless to try any sort of distractions or flanking maneuvers. The Byakugan makes a single combatant a force to be reckoned with, but even more, it creates outstanding battlefield control. Imagine being able to see the movement of every soldier in real time. The advantage is fearsome; there's a good reason why the Byakugan is protected against falling into the wrong hands. The Branch Family of the Hyuga is given a seal which destroys the eyes upon death...unfortunately, I don't think Susumu has such a seal. Because of that, we have to consider that, if he is killed, his Byakugan will probably end up in Mamban's hands."

"And we don't want that, right?" Rika asked as she leaned her head backward, using Akemi like a pillow and folding her arms along her own waist, thumbs twiddling with boredom. "What did Kakashi say he was doing, again?"

"Making final preparations. Last night he mentioned sending one more desperate plea of assistance to the Leaf. If anybody warrants a special consideration for reinforcements, it's Kakashi." Tenzo opened his eyes again, the clouds filling his vision as they lazily drifted. He thought of many things, but above all he wondered about how many of the innocent victims could really be saved. It was not the duty of a shinobi to fret over collateral damage, yet Kaine had seemingly convinced himself that he would be able to save _everyone _captured in Susumu's deceitful network. Tenzo wasn't so hopeful; years of experience with the Anbu Black Ops and Root had steeled him against such hopes. "It needs to happen soon, at any rate. It may seem counterproductive to attack during the day, but against Susumu's Byakugan, the darkness won't do us any favors and might serve as a disadvantage."

Akemi plucked a stray twig free of Rika's tangling hair. The trip to the Truth's outskirts had been quick and painless; her prized pupil and lover had been getting faster and stronger by the day. Well above a basic Genin level, perhaps even approaching Chunin—still, Akemi had to assume that all of their opponents on Mamban's side of things would be at _least_ Chunin skill. Mako and Fiona had been different from the rest of the slaves—something had forced them to find skills that they had never shown on their own. It couldn't have been the result of training. They weren't fast learners like Rika; they froze up in battle and when they did pull themselves together they were hardly worth mentioning. Still, the two of them had pressured Akemi on the rooftop despite underwhelming histories. Whatever Mamban had done to juice them up had probably been done to all of the rest of his soldiers, too.

"He needs to hurry his ass up," Akemi declared, the thread of her nerves running rather thin after so much waiting. "It's been too many hours..."

* * *

Kaine stepped into Minoru's waiting room. This time, unlike others, somebody else was seated in one of the chairs, aglow in the light of the swinging lamp that dangled from the ceiling. The walls were dark and dank, aged wood and layers of smoky ash acting like decorations. The other person waiting for an audience was Sammy, a tomboy with short, chopped up hair and a fierce, hawkish countenance. Despite her angry, wannabe-tough look, she was one of the students who had initially failed to access her chakra just like Tito. She had once cowered before Akemi, and Kaine couldn't blame her. When it came to _him_, though, she was combative and ornery.

"Took you long enough coming back, Kaine-sensei," she spat with resentment. "I was _just thinking_ about how you up and left us behind." Sammy stood, her shorts quite short despite the cold and her shirt reaching up to her neck and all the way down her arms. It was a strangely modest contrast compared to the lower half. "Rika left, too...and Akemi-sensei. Did they come back with you?"

Kaine shook his head. He hadn't wanted to see that familiar face at such a crucial moment. "No, they ran off on their own and I haven't got a clue where they ended up. Knowing my sister, she found herself a ditch to live in for a while." He lied to begin with, just in case ears were listening in. While he didn't _want_ to face her, he did have at least one question to ask: "Where're Tito and Nick?"

"Dead," Sammy said with a wave of her hand like she was cutting through a weak chain. "We had tests the other day, Tito lost to Medo-sensei, and Nick lost to me." She then shrugged, long ago accepting the way of things with a bit of help from the augmented food she ate. "Master Minoru's probably going to want to test you, too, now that you're here."

"Is there somebody in there with him right now?" Kaine asked, apprehensively looking at the massive steel door that separated the humble wooden room from the stiff, dark, rusty chamber that his former master called his home.

Sammy rolled her eyes and looked to the ceiling, sitting herself back down with a lazy flop and spreading her arms and legs out with exasperation. "Not that I know of, but I've been waiting for what feels like _days_ to see him."

Kaine didn't like the sound of that. "Sammy, listen to me, okay?" He leaned down, grabbing her by the collar and forcing her to look at his eyes. She didn't struggle, but she looked at him with a lifted brow. "You're going to hear some noises that you're not going to like...when they start, I want you to follow just one very simple command from me, as your good and proper, rightful sensei."

Sammy's chestnut hair was stiff, and the whole mess moved with her head as a single piece when she sagged at the neck, looking behind her chair at the nearby wall. "Whatever you say, sensei. If you want to just hop back into place and pretend I've got any reason to listen to you, then why would I even think about questioning your commands?" She sounded just a _little bit _spiteful.

Kaine dropped her collar, realizing quickly that she was going to be difficult. Truthfully, it hardly made a difference to him if she respected him or not, only that she listened to what he had to say. "When you hear something, I want you to run for the edge of the village. The barrier is going to come down, and before the fighting starts I want you to grab as many of our people as you can and get them out of here."

Sammy flexed her forehead, a crumpled dimple sinking between her eyes. "Who's fighting who?"

Kaine made a fist, looking down at it. He reached his arm out and grabbed Sammy by the fingers, locking his hand into hers and sending a powerful jolt of his own chakra into her system. He hoped that it would be enough, like it was for Tito, to temporarily disperse the influence of Minoru's poison. "I'm going to save everybody that I can, Sammy; just trust me that you're going to want to get out of here."

There was a shocked clarity in her eyes and her sclera turned red and veiny with realization. "I...I murdered Nick, Kaine-sensei...I killed him with a sword in the gut...?" she remembered, and Kaine sought to keep his chakra flowing through her, sought to give her enough time to gather herself. "You...you left us behind? Why'd you take Rika and not me...? I wanted to leave, too..."

Kaine felt the sting of her accusations. If she survived, she was going to carry her guilt for the rest of her life, but again Makoto's words provided comfort: _'We can't just wish away our mistakes. You're everything you ___are___ and everything you've ever ___been.' __He sighed, keeping his hand in place and forcing his former student to take in the details of the true world she lived in. "I'm sorry, Sammy; once this is over, I promise I'll make it up to you somehow, alright? Just please, for the sake of us all, do as I ask. You're going to feel something pulling at you from the inside when I let go of your hand, but you're going to fight it, aren't you? You're going to run out of here and start bringing as many of the Truth Village members as you can find to the borders."

Sammy gave a nod, looking frightened and confused, but there was no time for her to gather up all the strength it would take to face her own guilt. Kaine let go of her hand, looking her in the eyes and giving one more reminder. "You've gotten stronger since I left; you can dispel genjutsu on your own, now. I know it. Just concentrate; keep your chakra flowing. It's going to wear you out, but it's how you're going to keep a hold of your own mind. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

The tomboy gulped and nodded, suddenly sitting up straight and fully alert. "I understand, sensei," she murmured, closing her eyes and focusing her chakra. She was by no means an expert, but she was performing admirably under pressure.

"Now get going, Sammy. I have an appointment to keep." Kaine said with a rushed point of his finger, showing her the door. She scurried out, putting her hands together and maintaining herself as well as she could. There were a lot of people whom she wanted to save, and there was so little time for her to do it. Kaine regretted that she, of all people, was the one he found there—he regretted even more that Tito and Nick had been added to the pile of people whom he had failed. As Kaine looked to the gigantic door in front of him, he realized that the regrets would have to wait.

Hoping that his detour with Sammy hadn't given away his intentions, he shut his eyes and took a breath to poise himself. He had hoped for Tenzo to offer him a seed or two in order to give insight to what was going on, but the other man's refusal was backed by sound logic: Minoru had spotted the seeds once before, even when Kaine himself hadn't been aware of them. The risk of sending more in was too great to justify. Several people had placed their faith in Kaine; Akemi had offered to be the one to return, but her situation was more precarious—Kaine had lied dozens of times, had broken protocol just as many. Akemi's betrayal would have hurt especially bad, or so the theory went. For Kaine to come crawling back was nothing all that noteworthy by comparison.

The door swung open at his behest, and Kaine stepped inside the familiar abyss. The chamber was as he remembered it, though the smell in the air was a bit thicker than he had recalled. There were hints of vinegar lingering, but not powerful enough to be fresh. Cassy's presence and the robed men beside her had already tipped Kaine off that Mamban had been around, and that unique scent was something that he had detected in Monolith Point in the aftermath of the battle. "You've made interesting allies in my absence, Master Minoru." Kaine called out into the darkness. He heard himself echo back, a dangerous sense of lingering silence accompanying his greeting.

After a few expected heartbeats worth of quiet, the familiar tap of wooden sandals on metal flooring came down the hallway to greet a fidgety subordinate. "How odd of you to say such a thing to me, Kaine Hamasaki," Minoru's monotone came about, uttered as if nothing had changed between them. "I see that you have returned alone. Akemi Yamaguchi and Rika Mori; have they elected to stay away from us?"

Kaine nodded, unable to control his heartbeat and knowing that the Byakugan could detect his worry. He tried to allocate that suspicion onto something simpler. "Y-yeah, Master Minoru; I saw them fleeing from Monolith Point while Kakashi Hatake, Tenzo, and Mamban united as shinobi of the Leaf to destroy the town. I lost track of them, then, but I realized that you were right after all. The Leaf is our enemy, isn't it?"

Minoru nodded, reaching a soft hand out to pat Kaine's shoulder. "It's never too late to return to one's senses, my cherished left hand. Painfully, my machinations have been rather inefficient without you. Though I would never say it to his face, Medo is a rather poor replacement for your birthright brand of tenacity."

Kaine smirked at the compliment, nodding his head with ease. Despite his hatred and misgivings, he still carried an itchy smugness that Minoru knew how to scratch. A few choice words could get him into a good mood no matter the stakes. "Even I could've told you _that_, though. What has he botched lately?"

Minoru had a diminished smile. "Nothing catastrophic, though thanks only to good fortunes. I share your grievances with our new allies, but I will assure you that the cooperation is only temporary. We have used their supplies, fed ourselves, and will soon turn upon their occupation with decisive action."

Kaine got down on both knees, bowing his submission to his 'master.' The act felt like poison, and the words he had to utter then tasted like it as well. "Let me know how I can help, Master Minoru. Though I have been away, I am still yours to command."

Minoru squeezed his mouth into a knowing, twisted smirk. "I know you are, Kaine Hamasaki. I also know why you've come here today."

Kaine caught something in his throat. Had he been seen through? He felt his heart thumping in his chest and he was certain that the eyes hidden behind Minoru's deceptive blindfold were peering into his very soul. "Oh? Why is that?"

"Because you _always_ return," Minoru added with an atypical smugness. He seemed quite sure of himself when he stepped around Kaine's back and set both hands on his shoulders from a standing position. "You have always been loyal to _me_, to what _I_ believe in. You are, in truth, the only man I have ever trusted to venture away from my territory and still return with his obedience intact. The others, like Rika Mori and Akemi Yamaguchi, are far less cooperative."

Kaine couldn't believe what he was hearing; his ears burned with embarrassment and personal shame. He had always thought of himself as the _wild one_, as the one who would turn on his own master for an extra scrap of food. As he replayed all of his questions, he realized the answer: Why had Minoru allowed him to leave for more than five days at a time? Why did the poison seem to affect him for such a long time? Why did Minoru consciously allow him to remain in the custody of Kakashi and Tenzo at Monolith Point, knowing that the influence would wear down?

The answer was simple: He came back anyway. Kaine Hamasaki was a slave in his own mind. He had never even considered defecting from the Truth. Even without the poison, a two week stint in the hospital with Kakashi going so far as to remove a memory-suppressing seal, Kaine returned to the Truth Village without hesitation. It wasn't the poison that forced him to realize what he had done...it had been those eyes. Not Kakashi's Sharingan, or the fearsome tales of Susumu Hyuga's Byakugan—Makoto Mori's plain brown eyes had been the portal to Kaine's epiphany. Until he saw those tears, those simple, perfect tears, Kaine had never felt loved. He had only felt _wanted, _but never cherished. Minoru wanted him for his skill. Perhaps Akemi had loved him, but it felt obligatory—like she cared for him because she had nobody else. It was always a playful kind of love, a brother-and-sister set apart by a vast ocean kind of love. There, but subdued.

The tears that shed, water and salt down a porcelain cheek, had forced that idiot of a man to see that the world indeed had something to offer him. There was _salvation_, there was _peace_, there was _hope_—but he could not behold its majesty until he saw his own, older world through those refreshed eyes. He saw the state of his village under the mask of blurry tears every night as he laid awake after leaving Makoto's table. He felt like she pulled at him, like she wanted more than anything to give him whatever she could offer. He felt the importance of _himself_ through the reflection of her irises. And when he looked up toward Minoru's empty black stare, hiding dishonestly behind a blindfold, he was angry again.

Kaine spoke out of line, and he wasn't sorry. "I want to tell you something that I've learned over these past couple of months, Master," he began, standing up without permission as Minoru scowled from behind. The man in the blue robe circled to the front on measured steps. As always, Kaine's rowdy nature was expected. "My personal truth used to be something vapid and useless. I wanted to be _strong_; I wanted to rip the clouds out of the sky and skewer them with my own power. I craved control, I had a thirst for authority. I wanted to _take your place_, Master Minoru."

Though mildly surprised by the monologue, Minoru nodded once, understanding. "Yes, I have always known that. When the day comes, you _will_ be chosen to lead our people in the new age. I will not live forever, and neither will you, but there approaches a time when this entire village will be yours to direct."

Kaine shook his head, huffing out a single laugh through his nose. "That's not going to happen, Master Minoru. See, it _used _to be that way...but it isn't like that anymore. Now, I've seen the _real_ truth. Clouds, Master Minoru, _seem_ to get along really well...but eventually they fall apart and head someplace else, scattering to wind and the formation of the land. I used to think that the raindrops were something to envy, since they stuck together and could someday reunite with their comrades despite coming from different places. I thought the Truth was kind of like one of those clouds—all these different misfits and outcasts banding together, evaporated into a puff of smoke under the common cause of your wise, fair leadership."

"What are you implying, Kaine Hamasaki?" pondered Minoru, looking a tad agitated. It was an odd look for him, as far as Kaine could remember. He hadn't been there to see his master's breakdown before Kakashi, but he had gleefully _imagined_ it many times.

"_You're not the truth_, Minoru, and I've finally realized that. It took me almost ten years, but I can at last see you for what you are...you're just another Danzo Shimura, another slimy snake like Mamban. You twist and _use _people for your own ends. I know everything about your _toxin_; I know about your grand schemes to slaughter the innocent and guilty alike. You don't want peace, you want _control_. The signs were always there, right under my feet, but I never felt the need to check the bottom of my shoe. I was naïve because I _trusted you_, like Akemi trusted me when I took her away from here...and like Rika trusted _her _when we all fled together, hand in hand."

Minoru was twitching, then, not at all liking what he heard. Still, he stood with patience, wearing a front with as much effort as he could muster. "Who do you think you are, student of mine, to be speaking to your master in such a spiteful manner?"

Kaine held up a finger, wagging it tauntingly and tsking against his teeth. "Ah ah ah, _Master Minoru_," he spoke the name to the other man's face with as rough a growl as he could summon. He felt fury in himself, and it boiled up through his mouth to emerge as steaming vitriol. "I'm not your student anymore; that also means you're not my master. I know exactly who _you_ are, and yet you have missed a very important detail about _me_ in your hubris."

Minoru pondered, still, squinting under his mask and seeming unable to pick up on the hint. He was searching for clues along Kaine's body, looking for chakra signatures like the seeds from his previous return. Nothing was found, and the moment became more confusing.

Kaine chuckled, reaching his hand up to his own stony headband. "I don't envy clouds anymore; they _seem_ stable until they fall apart and become single drops of rain all fending for themselves. Some of them splatter against the ground and lose themselves. They succumb to natural forces, they fall apart without meaning to. There's something more powerful than the glue of your poison, or the clinging wetness of a raincloud...Use your sacred Byakugan, Susumu Hyuga, and see who I've become...I'm not Kaine Hamasaki, your 'left hand,' anymore."

Minoru looked to the hand that was on Kaine's forehead, then his mouth clenched, jaw tight and teeth clicking together in a satisfyingly angry grind as he pierced his sight through the top layer. Kaine was pleased by that look. Kaine continued, yanking at his topmost headband and throwing it with finality to the ground. The stone cracked in half on impact, falling into fragments and utterly destroying his aged, hand-carved icon. With the first layer gone, a gleaming metal placard was revealed above his eyes. The protective rectangle was secured in place by a black strip of cloth and it shimmered even in the low light of the underground tunnel. Upon the non-magnetic plate was a uniformly-forged etching of the symbol of Konoha. "From here on out, I'm going to be Kaine Hamasaki of the Hidden Leaf Village...and the glue that holds me—that holds _all of us _together—is my new personal truth. It's a truth that every one of us has in common...It's a truth, Susumu, that's called the _Will of Fire._"

* * *

**Next chapter coming soon. Again, thank you for everything!**


	34. The Heir of Ruins

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Cassy and Seshu were each idly considering their role in the plan to come. The white-haired miracle survivor was chowing on a leg of chicken, cooked with the skin upon it and dusted with pepper and garlic. He waved it around by the bone, pointing it to Cassy's twitching brow as he spoke to her. "It's a load of bull," he said through a gnashing mouth full of stringy meat. "How's he gonna expect us to stay behind and support this dump while the puppets get to go fight the Leaf head on?"

Cassy huffed through her red lips, her hand stroking along her angled chin and her elbow rested on a lifted knee. She was draped over the roof of some abandoned house, barely larger than a tent. She figured that it probably belonged to a dead person, so there was no harm in using it for a nap. "Should you really be eating that?" she pondered, trying to swap the subject. She was irritated, too, but she didn't want to question Mamban's decisions.

"What's the worst that could happen?" Seshu replied with an unenthusiastic shrug, taking another deep bite and ripping the white, well-seared meat away from the greasy bone.

"Heart attack, maybe?" the woman teased through drooping lashes, her mouth turned into a triangular grin, teeth looking especially sharp at the corners of her mouth. "Say, do you want to cause some trouble?" she hissed through the tight white walls of her fangs, her hair appearing to bristle up on the back of her neck as she leaned down toward her counterpart who was seated on the ground.

"Come on, Cassy, you _know _I love to cause trouble. And if I'm stuck babysitting you, I might as well have some fun with it...So, who do you like _best_ around here?" he started waving his chicken around again, indicating a few scattered residents who looked nervous and unprepared for their imminent engagement in a full-scale war. Minoru's army was worse off than a regiment of child soldiers; Seshu could tell that much from his own experiences with warfare as a teen. They didn't have the heart and soul to be combatants. "I'll bring 'em in for you," He mumbled inside of another bite, finishing off the bone and tossing it aside. Where it landed, ice began to crackle along the dry soil in a slowly expanding spiderweb.

"Mm, I think..." Cassy murmured with her gloved finger lazily pointing around, finally settling on a hastily running young girl with her hands braced together like she was holding something. "...that one!" She licked her lips deviously, turning her eyes down toward Seshu and giving him a wink. "I'll even let you watch this time," she added as she leaned back and stretched, accentuating the curves of herself through the strategically-trimmed robe. Though their masks were destroyed, the two of them still managed to remain generally unnoticed in the village, blending in with the rest of the faceless legions thanks to the black sameness of their garments.

Seshu had a cunning smirk as he stood up, rocking his head from side to side and cracking some frozen joints loose from one another in his neck. "I'll go on and sweet talk her, then," he said through a lazy yawn. Just about two weeks had passed since Mamban's full operation was refocused into the Truth Village. Their abandoned cave was far off from where they were presently situated, and Goda's grave was rather hastily dug as an afterthought. Mamban had insisted on having a proper funeral, though the service was sparse. Cassy said goodbye, but she was the only one with anything to say. Digging his final resting place was a sobering touch of reality that crept its way into their fantasy world—until that point, they hadn't lost one of their own since the third war. Naturally, they tried to avoid thinking about him.

Seshu was sneaking up to the sprinting girl; she was acting a bit skittish, even compared to the rest of her ilk, and she kept leaning in to whisper to people in a rush. Seshu caught up to her, grabbing her by the upper arm and turning her from a full-speed gallop into a full stop. Ice formed along her sleeve where his glove touched, and he had a frightening grin. "What's your hurry, honey? I've got somebody who wants to meet you."

The girl was Sammy, her arm losing feeling rapidly under the grip of the stranger; she had seen him once or twice from afar, usually with others like him. She had a moment of panic, and she tried to throw a punch into his face, but her fingers turned cold and lifeless as they got too near his skin. Seshu didn't flinch. "Jeez, I'm doing you a favor and all you're giving me back is a temper?" He tsked, allowing ice to form on the girl's skin and turn her pale surface a ghostly blue. "Relax. We ain't gonna hurt you, just get to know you a bit."

"Let go of me! You don't understand," Sammy said urgently, struggling against the ice that was beginning to spread into her veins. Despite her feisty spirit, she knew the risks of frozen blood, so she fell still and hoped that her captor would ease up. She strained through a quivering throat, trying her best to keep her chakra flowing as Kaine had instructed. "Something's...about to happen...I've gotta warn Medo-sensei about it!"

Seshu released her, tilting his head and looking baffled. "The hell do you mean something's about to happen? Where're you even coming from?" He opened his pupil-less eyes, lids peeling back while he turned his head toward where he had seen Sammy fleeing from. At the top of the hill, encased by trees, rested Susumu's residence. "Didn't that Hamasaki kid just head up there?" He lost track of Sammy, and Cassy looked rude in the distance. She hadn't heard what happened, but she was there in a moment, her body flickering out of visibility as her speed took her closer. While Seshu let Sammy go, Cassy's slender hand grabbed the other girl by the back of her shirt collar, catching her at the neck.

"Why'd you let her go?" Cassy inquired, a pout that was incongruous with the sinister tone in her voice.

"We need to find Mamban right away, Cassy. We're about to have a coup on our hands," Seshu deduced, looking around. "Maybe we should just start swatting flies before they get the chance to buzz in our ears," he said, turning to Sammy who was still captured, grabbing her by the back of the hair and squeezing his fist to freeze the strands until they crumbled away, leaving a pit of shorter fuzz beneath and scaring the life out of the young woman.

"W-what are you doing...?" Sammy whimpered, feeling rather helpless as her collar was abusively tugged and she felt the coldness of the nearby man's grip seeping toward her skin.

A booming, demanding voice echoed through the air, cutting like a well-thrown kunai and sinking in deep. "_I won't tolerate this kind of behavior in our village!_"

Though Seshu and Cassy were hardly impressed by the baritone, the words felt oddly defiant. They could have come from Susumu, for all the compassion and misguided anger. Seshu turned first, regarding the man who spoke; one of the cockroaches. "Who're you supposed to be?" the icy-veined scoundrel asked with a sense of superiority. The interruption came from an older-looking man, even more so than Mamban; he had a skin tone like Cassy's, probably from the Land of Lightning like she had been. His eyes had a similar golden tint, too, but with oddly thin lining about the pupils.

"I'm Medo Shuria, and I've been watching you two...Master Minoru may trust you folks, but I don't," he revealed as he walked closer, arms out to his sides and ready for trouble. "Let go of the girl and turn your backs; you're not going to make a _game_ of this place if I have something to say about it."

Cassy rolled her eyes, closing her lids and flexing a set of fingers on her left hand, the right still stubbornly clamped to Sammy's collar. Medo rather abruptly went quiet, then gasped for air, hands clutching around his neck as tiny, paper-thin strips of his flesh were clamped down. Invisible strings wrapped his throat and lifted him up from the ground. Cassy canted her head aside, looking at the poor sap who intruded into her fun with a bored, sidelong smirk. "You _don't _have anything to say. Sorry!" she whistled out with a wave of her pinky, then a flick of her left wrist, sending Medo away from her strings and into a tree, the ragdoll of a man crashing through the stiff bark and bringing the oak to fold in on itself before he fell limply to the forest floor.

"Timber!" Seshu called out with a hand cupped over his mouth, though the great tree had not fully fallen over, merely buckled at its center. It held precariously in place, creaking but stable. "Damn," spoke the ice man, turning to regard Cassy and her terrified prisoner. "That probably got Susumu's attention...think maybe you overdid it?"

Sammy was released, and she immediately started to run away as Cassy pranced carelessly toward Medo's unconscious self. "So what if I did?" she answered her 'babysitter,' kicking the side of Medo's shoulder to test him for life. He was breathing, but it was shallow. She certainly flung him harder than she meant to. "You said you _love _to cause trouble, didn't you? Well, here's our trouble!"

"Did you kill him?" Seshu pondered, standing beside the half-sized woman. Cassy was the youngest one in Mamban's main crew, but only by a few years—Susumu and the others were barely teenagers when the schoolhouse was discovered, and Cassy was going on ten already. "I bet you killed him, and now you're gonna be in trouble," Seshu whispered with a tattle-tale's sing-song voice. The tree's lopsidedness hadn't gone unnoticed, with curious young people who heard the crash or otherwise saw the commotion now gathering around the unwelcome pair of ruthless shinobi.

* * *

Susumu was livid as he looked upon Kaine's gleaming headwrap. He felt an ancient anger poking up through his pores, finding a way through the numerous mental blocks he had forced himself to develop. "You're not only a traitor to me, but a traitor to _yourself_," the leader of the Truth Village spat toward his once-trusted pupil. "The only consolation that you will take from this decision to face me, dear Kaine, is that you will not survive long enough to experience the betrayal of the Leaf..."

"I'm not going to _survive_? Ha! I've _always_ survived...with and without you, Susumu, I've lived through everything I've _ever_ faced..." Kaine clenched his fists, both of them, as tightly as he could, then slammed his knuckles together. "Do you think _you_ will be the one who finally brings me down?" Emboldened by the symbol upon his forehead, by the thoughts of Kakashi, Tenzo, Akemi, Rika, and Makoto above all, Kaine forced his chakra to flow freely through his arms. A circuit was completed within his chakra network, igniting both halves of his tandem nature and bringing them into a new form.

"Impressive show, Kaine Hamasaki," Susumu murmured as clouds began to form, their sparkling energy causing soft blue flashes to languidly illuminate the chamber. The metal that constituted the walls, floor, and ceiling served as a channeling link to spread the static power through the depths. "Impressive, but futile!" Susumu opened a palm, primed his feet against the floor, and pushed a thrust of his arm outward to bat Kaine's stomach with a powerful strike. It connected, and the display of crackling storm power seemed to halt its growth as the younger man doubled over, gasping and stepping back.

Kaine had certainly expected Minoru's hits to _hurt_, but when the palm struck his gut, it agitated all his nerves and shoved pain into _every fiber_ of his being. He could feel the acids sloshing around in his stomach and he had to fight the urge to spit it all up. Another blow followed the first, forcing Kaine's arms apart with a palm that struck like iron, blowing right past his defenses and shoving into his chin to launch him from his feet and shove his back into the closed door. The impact of solid muscle and the tink of a sword sheathe resounded through the chamber and Kaine fell onto his knees. Quickly, though, he stood himself up and slapped his hands back together.

"What is this attempt of yours, foolish Kaine?" Minoru asked, focusing his Byakugan on the brash traitor standing in front of him. A pair of chakra points had been successfully shut down, but the flow was still largely free to run. "Though I regret this alliance with the enemy, it has proven useful...I have been told of your newly awakened power. Your adolescent Storm Release will not be enough to destroy what I have spent these years building!" Minoru thrust his hand again, striking Kaine directly over the heart and sending slicing ribbons of chakra beneath the flesh to impact the organ itself. Though it was a solid hit, the organ continued to beat beneath the pressure of impact and the superficial damage.

Kaine took the blow and felt his vision darken for a moment, but he regained it after another thunk against the metal flatness behind him bounced him forward. His fingers clawed at the metallic surface, digging bloody gashes into his digits while he fought to find something to hold onto. "I don't have to destroy it _all_," Kaine said, tasting copper in his mouth and throat before hacking up a splash of saliva-diffused blood. "Just _enough_ of it..." His smile was bloody as he slapped his fists together a third time, focusing as much of his energy as he could.

Minoru countered the attempt with a rapid swat of both hands, knocking Kaine's arms out to either side and then clasping his own wrists together to form a ten-fingered strike. Both arms and the full torque of his waist went into slamming Kaine's gut, tearing him apart inside and knocking him onto his back yet again. With his student rather hastily beaten and bloody, Minoru stood near him and pressed a sandaled foot to Kaine's neck, seeking to choke the life out of him from above. "You will destroy _nothing, _Kaine Hamasaki...I will not suffer your treachery for another moment."

Just before the final stomp that would have crushed the weak neck beneath his foot, Minoru felt a shift in the air around him. His Byakugan had easily seen the chakra expanding and spreading, but it had seemed so small, so residual—it snaked along the metal walls as one would expect, but as he focused more intensely upon the behavior, it struck him as intentional. Guided. As the understanding sunk into the Byakugan-user's angered mind, he came to grasp the full scope of his folly. Kaine Hamasaki had been distracting him with rage while his chakra was positioned; the true target was not Minoru, but an array further back.

Six chambers, six doors of importance. Six volunteers of long ago. Their power fueled the barrier around the village through a state of perpetual genjutsu, courtesy of Minoru's constant supervision. The barrier was controlled by the master's hands, but it was powered by his faithful, long-forgotten council of six. Their names had been added to the stones years ago. Kaine's chakra had seeped into those six chambers that dotted the rim of the long hallway by using the metal lining as a conduit, the nature of Storm Release allowing a watery lightning to delicately arrange itself into a deadly pattern. Kaine was laughing boldly beneath Minoru's foot when he found the strength to clap his hands together one last time. Though Minoru tried to stop it in an unexpected panic, he found that he could not.

* * *

"Let's all stay calm," Seshu pompously suggested with his hands held out and his fingers turned down as if trying to tightly pack a layer of dirt at waist height. "You see, that guy there:" with a point to Medo's unconscious sprawl, "was running his mouth, so we had to make him stop. It was self defense, honest," he said without any semblance of legitimate honesty. He had nothing to fear, and neither did Cassy—Minoru's whelps were outnumbered three to one by Mamban's army of enslaved soldiers. Were he to make bets on top of that, as well, Seshu would guarantee that _just_ he and Cassy would be able to mop up the whole village, so long as Susumu stayed out of it.

"We don't want you here anymore," said a young but spirited voice in the gathered crowd. A dozen or so, all armed to the teeth with kunai, swords, paper bombs, and wire string were standing at the ready. The numbers would have been threatening if any of them had been given any training worth a damn, and Seshu wasn't oblivious enough to miss the way they all shook at the ankles, even though their eyes had a callous toughness to them. The declaration had been made, but there was no reason to heed it.

"Sorry, sunshine," Seshu answered, walking fearlessly up to the barely-adult boy who had voiced the eviction notice. "It's not up to you whether we stay or not; that's a call for your boss to make."

Cassy giggled childishly again, noting that Sammy had disappeared over the horizon in some frenzied state of panic. A light flickered on in her thoughts. "Hey, wait a sec, Seshu..." she started, thumbing the base of her sharp chin and looking to the sky above her head. "Didn't that girl say that something was about to hap—" she was cut off by a solid rumble, as if the entire planet had been knocked off kilter. Even Seshu stumbled as the world collapsed around him and the cockeyed tree with a Medo-shaped crack finished its fall and crashed through a row of huts, destroying a handful of homes whose occupants were gathered around the previous spectacle.

By the time the shaking had ceased, the elevation of the Truth Village had fallen several inches, a rim of earth risen around its borders to make up for the displacement. More of the haphazardly-built huts had fallen in the turmoil, with the large hospital near the center tilting dangerously on its axis. Cassy had fallen onto her butt and hands, but with a flick of a wrist she wrapped strings around a stable tree and pulled herself gracefully onto her feet. Seshu was slower to rise, rubbing his forehead where a lump had begun to form. He had been tossed against the young man who called him out, and the latter had been knocked unconscious by the abrupt collision.

"What in all the hells was _that_, Cassy?" demanded Seshu, looking to the woman and noticing that her crisp gold eyes were turned skyward. Her jaw hung open, and soon so did Seshu's. The sky began to sparkle as a ripple ran through it, and the clouds took on a crystal clear formation above. The distortion of light had been torn away—the barrier had fallen down. The sunken elevation was the result of the removal of the lower layer that served as defense against digging intruders. With the hard energy no longer in place, the whole landscape had, on a geological scale, gently shifted to join together again...When the dust had settled, The Village Hidden by Truth was no longer hidden at all.

* * *

Ash and dust filled the chamber and coated the lining of Kaine Hamasaki's vision. He tried to blink it away, but it only caked further along the corners of his eyes. He rubbed with one hand and then both, forming chakra through his damaged system to summon up a spritz of water to flush his sockets. He felt half of himself closed down, his stomach shredded and his heart beating at double its safe range, fighting to continue pumping enough blood to his wounded innards. Kakashi hadn't been lying about the capabilities of a Hyuga—Kaine could sense that his chakra was restrained and his network was clamped shut at key junctures. He could barely move his arms, but he had done what he set out to do; his piece of the mission was completed. Despite the huge aftermath, there was no massive blast at the cap of his technique. He employed the less destructive half of his ability—the power to suck the chakra out of something.

Rather than murder the six 'volunteers' in cold blood, Kaine had merely latched his clouds to their shriveled bodies and sucked the energy out of them. The ash and dirt that filled his mouth and eyes came from the jostling of the world around him; he felt himself in a free fall for nearly a second by the time he crashed down again. Minoru was thrown off of him as a result, and Kaine was given a precious few rapid heartbeats to gather himself up. Though his energy was detoured, he managed to run a stiff electric current through himself that he focused intently on searing his internal wounds shut.

He had previously thought that Minoru's strikes had been painful, but the agony of burning himself from within using his own chakra was an unexplored level of hell, some tenth realm of torment that hosted him as its sole guest. He lost focus more than once as he screamed in unbridled, babyish howls. Each time he finished a surge, he stopped to catch his breath and swallow the drool that had dripped down his mouth. Internal injuries were deadly; that was what made the Hyuga's Gentle Fist so punishing. Fortunately, Kakashi and Tenzo had prepared him for the encounter and taught him a trick. A painful, rarely-successful trick that was only to be used as a final card to play. He played it; his wounds were seared shut inside of him and he could smell his own flesh cooking when he took breaths of the collapsed tunnel.

Metal panels were shorn off the walls and had fallen from the ceiling, with entire segments of the mile-deep tunnel having fallen in as a result of the resettling inverse dome of the Truth Village. Kakashi had once seen the barrier all the way through the ground as a complete sphere—he had also accurately predicted what would happen if it were to be abruptly released and there was nothing in place to fill the gap.

* * *

Tenzo and Akemi both felt the tremor at the same time, their attunement giving them the awareness to feel much subtler emissions than some. What followed soon after the initial shock was powerful enough for even Rika to detect it without question. In fact, she was knocked loose from her branch, only spared a face full of dead leaves by the quick catch of her sensei by the ankle. "Careful, Rika; can't go getting knocked out by the _signal, _can you?"

Rika was ashamed but reaffirmed by her lover's playful tease. "I was just testing you, Aki. I wanted to know you'd catch me!" she crossed her arms, dangling like a peach if Akemi were the stem that held her onto a low branch.

Tenzo looked to the pair, checking them for readiness with a simple glance. Their headbands were in place and his faceplate was on; Kakashi had told them all to go forward at the precise moment the earth shook. "It's time; come on, you two." He waved a no-nonsense hand to beckon the ladies onward, launching himself through the trees and clearing hundreds of feet with each mighty leap. Rika and Akemi looked to one another and gave a simultaneous nod, firing themselves off in a similar manner and achieving high speed. It was time for the real mission; Rika finally got the feeling that her training was over and that there was no more room for mistakes. Mistakes got people killed—mistakes might have gotten _Akemi_ killed. Rika made a vow in her own head not to make a single mistake that day. Through the trees, peeking over the curved horizon, the Truth Village's outskirts could be seen. Exposed and naked, the trees carved with the word 'truth' served as a reminder of the once-proud border that was now sunken several feet into the ground on all sides.

* * *

Makoto was serving a bowl of 'famous' stew to yet another guest when the tremor reached Monolith Point. She stumbled and fell forward, tripping but being caught by her father from behind. He also managed to save the bowl from a broken fate, but the hot liquid inside splashed out a bit and doused his cast. Rika had somewhat accidentally broken both of his wrists during the battle for their town, but he was healing quickly and could still use his hands, aside from having a poor range of motion for moving them at the joint.

"Careful, sweetheart," Makoto's father said with a loving hum. He stood her back up on her two feet and offered the bowl to her. The civilians had been warned of an impending quake, and it was relatively minor at such a distance, but the shaking had probably been much more intense at its epicenter. "Your two unconscious friends are still at the hospital. Are you sure you want to be here right now?"

Makoto looked to her dad with deep brown eyes, feeling his strong and supportive hand around her thick waist. He was a bear of a man, able to hoist up two full barrels of water over each shoulder while hardly breaking a sweat...and yet Rika had tossed him about like he was nothing. Makoto had never seen a ninja up close or known what they could really do—she had heard stories, of course—but only when she was being controlled by Mamban did she finally witness the speed and ferocity of unbridled shinobi combat. Imagining Rika with such strength was a bit chilling, but also assuring.

"Sorry, Dad," Makoto muttered; her thoughts were elsewhere and her body couldn't keep track. She was hoping to tell Kaine something special before he left, but she had felt a frustrating block in her mind. She wanted to give him something from the heart, something that only she could offer him. It quickly struck her mid-thought that she couldn't think of a single thing about herself that was fully unique. It was depressing to her, but she refused to dwell too tightly on that diminishing thought. "I'm _sure_ I want to be here," she affirmed with a resolute nod. "I promised Kaine that we'd have a full helping of stew for all the people he brings back with him from his old home...I think that he and I both want this place to be his _new_ home...and I want to be here when he comes _back_ home for the first time. Not a hospital or a prison, but a front door with a welcome mat and a smiling family inside. _Our_ family. You, and mom, and me..."

Her father seemed to understand, probably because he had been listening in on all the conversations held at night, provided that he wasn't knocked unconscious for them. He had heard quite a few of their discussions. "He'll be back before you know it," he said with a paternal pat on her head. With confidence back in her rosy cheeks, Makoto took the slightly-spilled stew bowl and turned to set it on the waiting table. The guests were grateful despite the brief holdup; everybody in that town had always been friendly and patient, and things had scarcely changed. If anything, they were further united by the experience of becoming slaves and being freed...freed by none other than Kakashi Hatake, a hero whose name should have inspired fear, yet persistently seemed to inspire hope instead.

* * *

_Your mission is to lower the barrier by any means necessary. I suggest a subtle approach; call Susumu's attention away from his chamber, perhaps enlist the help of somebody you trust inside the village. If there's nobody that you can trust, then try to use a clone as the distraction. Don't sacrifice yourself if you don't need to. _Kakashi's voice echoed in Kaine's head as he at last managed to stand. He could feel the burns inside of him and the remaining electrical energy was causing his muscles to spasm and misfire. Minoru had done a seriously thorough job of ruining his concentration and crippling his strength, but he was recovering from the assault in swift time.

When the dust underground did finally clear, Kaine moved toward the door to the chamber that led into the waiting room. He opened it, and light reached his eyes, but it was cloudy light. Outside there had been leaf dust and wood splinters blowing about in a rush of wind. The village had become something of a shallow valley, a bowl for the winds to whirl around in. As Kaine stepped into the dimly-lit waiting room, he felt a hand at his shoulder, soft and warm. "You've done the unthinkable," Minoru said from behind, his mask disheveled but still in place above the sinister snarl. "You've violated the sanctity of your own village..."

"It's not my village anymore, _Susumu_," Kaine said, nervous under his previous master's calm touch but keeping the bite in his words. "I'm a part of the Leaf again, like I always should have been. You call yourself Minoru because it means truth, but even that name is a sham. You've lied since day one, haven't you?"

"It's a world that cherishes lies and buries the truth, Kaine Hamasaki," replied Minoru with a squeeze on his student's shoulder. There was no malice in his touch, no utilization of Gentle Fist to form a surprise attack. "I'm merely fitting in. Surely you can understand that."

Kaine shrugged, knocking the hand off his shoulder. The whole of the terrain had been nudged about ten degrees off-level, leaving an annoyingly constant tilt at the feet. For a ninja used to stepping up walls and hanging from ceilings, it was hardly a distraction at all. Still, he felt it. "Don't talk to me about understanding, Susumu," Kaine shot back with the proper bluntness, emphasizing the man's true name as a way of driving in the nails of actual truth. "You were like a father to me...Do you know how many times I tried to stand up for you—tried to tell Kakashi that his people were liars, scum, thieves, slave-drivers? I said it all in your name, 'Minoru,' and in doing so...I made myself into your fool. I was nothing but your damned _jester_."

"You were my _heir, _Kaine!" Susumu shouted with a swipe of his hand through empty air. "It would all have been _yours_, in time!"

"I'm the heir of ruins, you imbecile!" Kaine called out, matching the slash of air with a stomp of his foot, sending cracks through the off-centered wooden floor. The lamp hung awkwardly from the ceiling, tilted like a funhouse. "Your decisions are going to get you _slaughtered_, along with all those people out there who have your _poison_ running through their veins and your _lies_ filling their heads! You've backed yourself into such a corner that you're relying on _monsters_ as allies...You've fallen far, Master Minoru. Last night, I wept for the man I thought you were. Today...I can kill you without regrets."

With a short hum, Susumu took a step back from Kaine and folded his hands into a sign, flexing his fingers against one another and dispelling himself as a clone. Kaine had never seen it happen before, and although Kakashi had filled him in on the details, it was still a shock to see his friend, mentor, and erstwhile father figure vanish into a puff of smoke. Moments later, after a stiff rumbling of moving earth, a figure emerged from the tunnel that was not unlike the clone. The man in true form was more weathered, with steep creases along the corners of his lips and tattered robes hanging over his shoulders and down to his feet.

"Kaine Hamasaki," said the real body of Susumu. His voice was smaller, less decisive when it lacked the embellishments of his cloned persona. He was a meeker individual than his clones would have suggested to Kaine, yet the defector knew better than to underestimate the honest power lurking inside. "Allow me to introduce myself..." Minoru continued, and then he reached up, as Kaine had reached to his own headband within the chamber, and then pulled down his fierce black mask. Kaine felt a bead of sweat trickle down his cheek and over his jawline as he came face to face with the power of the Byakugan. It was not as coveted or notorious as the Sharingan, but it was feared and respected all the same. "My name is Susumu Hyuga..." said the man who was almost nothing like Kaine's master.

"It's not exactly a _pleasure_ to meet you," snarled Kaine, reaching to his back for a weapon. "I was serious about killing you, so it was probably a mistake for you to bring your real self out here..."

Susumu, his face exposed, smiled peacefully. "There is no need to dirty an innocent room, my pupil," he had the nerve to say. "You have come a long way since I first met you, Kaine Hamasaki...and you continue to learn quickly." His open eyes, bright and white and surrounded by thick veins of activity, focused harshly on his rebellious child.

Kaine froze. There were those words again, those dreaded, inescapable words. He had hoped to never hear them again, most certainly not in such a situation as the one he found himself in. "You..." he started, cautious. "You wish to test me, then?"

Susumu nodded, folding his arms together and exhaling through his nose with calm control. "That is right, Kaine Hamasaki...I wish to see your progress firsthand." He stepped forward, eye to eye with Kaine, though looking down at the slightly shorter, considerably younger usurper.

Kaine was sweating profusely, the lingering dust and debris in the air clinging to his wet skin. He gulped again. He had believed himself to be above the idea of fear—he never expected to be afraid of Minoru, or Susumu, or Mamban or Cassy or even Danzo ever again. Yet there he stood in a tilted room to hear the speech that always stopped his heart, from childhood to that very day. "W-who shall be my opponent?" Kaine asked as if it were automatic. The process was one he had gone through dozens of times; it was so deeply ingrained within him that even with a Leaf headband nestled on his brow, he answered the call for a trial without fail.

"_I _will be your partner for the trial," Susumu said firmly, narrowing his lids and scowling along his forehead. "The time has come, Kaine Hamasaki, to see whether or not you are truly worthy as my successor...If you defeat me, my dear Kaine, you will become the rightful leader of this 'Village no longer Hidden by Truth'. You have obtained the power of Storm Release; you have a person who is dear to you, a person to lay your life down for. You have integrity and ferocity; you can see through the veil of lies that this world has become. Though you are a liar and a traitor, so is Susumu Hyuga...it is only fitting that another liar rises to take his place, if he be worthy."

Kaine didn't understand. "What is all this supposed to mean? You mean you're giving me the chance to free this village from you without strings attached?"

Susumu chuckled, shaking his head. "This is no gift...You should know that you cannot defeat me, Kaine Hamasaki...this is merely a formality. A chance that has always been promised to those who believe that they know this world's truths better than I do. I could kill you here, alone and out of sight, or show the people of this village that I am a fair, just leader willing to stand for what I believe is right. I will no longer face them as Minoru; I am, and always have been, Susumu Hyuga. I am not an avatar of vengeance, some righteous specter born out of a dying boy's final wish to the heavens...The real, ultimate truth, is that I am merely a man with special eyes and a curse of extreme power. And you, Kaine, are an outcast of Root, doomed to die but stubbornly alive, just the same as I..."

Kaine looked pointedly down to his torso, a hand clutching over the double layer of scars beneath his vest and under-suit, one from Akemi and the other from the unknown opponent who thought to have killed him under the watchful administration of Danzo Shimura. Gifted with his chance to make a proper statement, Kaine breathed hard and felt some of the sting of his scorched insides. He wasn't in top shape, but he felt close enough to make a stand. "You're not fair _or_ just, Susumu; you poisoned your people to force them into believing in you...there's not even a risk in showing your true face to them. You're afraid of rejection, so you'd force them to accept you...well, Susumu, I'll _never _accept you. Instead, I'll kill you today beneath the sun and drifting clouds."

Susumu had a warm happiness on his face, and he offered a gesture of his hand to indicate the front door. Rather than keep up with his raging rant, Kaine stepped outside through it, opening himself to the bright light of a village without its barrier and finding himself heavily affected by the destruction that splintered through the geography. Cracks in the earth, broken buildings, and fallen trees were in the place of what used to be a bustling community. Susumu followed behind, still looking smug. He spoke with backhanded kindness. "Behold the destruction you've wrought with your rescue mission, Kaine Hamasaki...acknowledge every detail, then ask yourself if you deserve to be their savior..."

Kaine ignored the needling, deciding in his own mind that it was Susumu's own actions that brought it all crashing down. He had been priming the village for collapse since the day he erected the barrier; pulling the rug out from underneath was to be expected, someday. "I can only see the monsters you've invited inside..." Kaine answered, his eyes on the dozens if not hundreds of Mamban's soldiers lining the trees and roofs. He could see some of each faction in a gathering in the distance, but he was too focused on vengeance to think about it. His goal in that moment was to face Susumu in one-on-one combat and emerge as the victor.

* * *

Seshu was about to silence the whole crowd with a freezing sweep of his hand, but he was interrupted by a different hand on his wrist, a dainty, gloved hand that was attached to Cassy. She spoke up with sultry interest. "Say, isn't that our old pal Susumu over there?" she pointed with her other hand, catching the attention of the Truth Villagers as well as Seshu himself.

"Who the heck's Susumu?" came a groggy, disoriented question from the dirt as Medo finally roused from his unconsciousness. The shaking of the earth had probably played some part in calling him back to his senses, and he rubbed his back with serious need to loosen up the bleeding, tightened muscles all up and down his spine. He considered himself lucky to be moving after such a hard hit. With all his parts reasonably intact, Medo checked the sight for himself by holding a hand over his forehead to block the brighter-than-usual sun. "That's Master Minoru...but his mask is off?"

"It's Susumu Hyuga, actually...seems he's not trying to hide it anymore, Cass," Seshu said with an accepting shrug. "Ah well, I guess all our masks went up at about the same time, so it's not a big deal. He does have a bit more to lose than we do, though..."

"For now, maybe," Cassy murmured, still dwelling on thoughts of Danzo and his impending retaliation. He was not a man who accepted betrayal any better than Mamban or Minoru. Arguably, he was the most merciless of all. "Let's go see what's up; this little quarrel back here can wait, right?" She looked about, checking the damage and injuries. She hadn't killed anyone, though she wouldn't have been too broken up about it if she had.

"I'm game," Seshu answered, looking to Medo. All of the other boys and girls in wannabe headbands turned to Medo as well; he stood as their highest authority in Minoru's absence or otherwise unavailability.

"...If it'll stop us all from trying to kill each other, I'm up for almost anything," Medo finally said, though he looked at Cassy with a pretty solid grudge held underneath his gaze. The puppeteer made a gesture of cat claws, winking at Medo before swiveling away to rock her hips and catch up with Seshu on the way to the training field.

Medo wanted to question why Minoru had been revealed as somebody else—his brain wrapped around the idea that the truthseeker had been using the Byakugan all along, but it couldn't strike him as surprising or even curious. He was forced to accept it, whether he wanted to or not. What should have been a shattering revelation ranked as a shrug on his internal scale. The poison was deep inside of him, and deep in others. As the villagers lined up single file to advance on the impending showdown, not a single one of the Truth ninjas asked about Minoru's ruse, or any other questions that went beyond:_ 'What's going to happen to all of us now that the barrier is down?'_

* * *

Mamban was perched idly on a tree that overlooked the field; he could see Kaine and Susumu taking their positions within the massive testing ring. Maskless and in the flesh, Susumu had seemingly been lured out of hiding. Beneath the small placeholder mask that was red as blood and smooth as silk, the cracked and dry lips of the monster turned up into a gleeful curve. He waved his hands around, jiggling his fingers as if he were playing with marionettes in each hand. "That's right, old friend, _stand_ on your _principles_...and then you can _fall_ on your _sword_."

* * *

**Thanks for reading! I plan on making the next chapter extra-long, so it might take a bit more time for me to get it out. Either way, it will be soon. Just maybe not as soon as usual!**


	35. Strong Enough

**As promised, here's the extra-long chapter! By word count, it's roughly twice the size of the average chapter in this story! I hope you enjoy it, because I had an absolute blast going all out while writing it. There's a perspective shift into first person a ways down, and it's marked with italics. If there are errors, forgive me; it's a lot of text to try to edit, this time! Please let me know what you think of this chapter! **

* * *

New leaves found their way onto the training field; with the barrier stricken down, there was nothing to impede the overflow from spilling into the forest. The village might have been flooded had the shield reached only a few dozen yards further in any easterly direction. In the sky, there were a scant few clouds, all white and far from threatening rain. It was a gorgeous day for a showdown, and Kaine Hamasaki stared down Susumu Hyuga in the largest arena in the village. It was rectangular, but still referred to as a 'circle' for the sake of uniformity with the rest of the layout. The inner box was dry dirt and surrounded by a deep white line of chalk and ash to define boundaries.

Susumu was breathing deeply, looking serene to offset the nervous twitches in his opponent's stance. "Try not to disappoint me, my former left hand," the Hyuga said with lukewarm fluidity. "I would hate to realize that I've been nursing a poor choice for so much time." The taller man, older and wiser, was unwrapping the strip of cloth that held his robe to his body. Tossing the ribbon aside, it fluttered through the air and fell along the outskirts of their playing area. Following the strand of blue came a rush of white and darker blue, the whole form of his robe tossed off and to the side, revealing the warlike garments beneath.

He was dressed for battle, nearly identical to Kaine with the deep blue vest and suit of black cloth beneath. He reached into a pouch that dangled against his hip, already outfitted in case of the worst. From inside of it, Susumu fetched a pair of gloves without fingers, stretching them over his right hand, and then his left, flexing each digit to test the fit. "I must confess for the sake of transparency, Kaine, that this battle is more than just a formality...it's a fantasy of mine."

Kaine looked annoyed, but he was studying his enemy's every movement. "A fantasy? You're gonna have to explain that one," he said through clenched teeth. The man in front of him was supposed to be so many things—his hope for the future, the leader of his village, even a man that was not unlike a father. How had such a merciful, calm, intelligent man proven to be such a devious liar? Perhaps all the intelligence had simply been allocated to the wrong area. "A guy like you shouldn't be fantasizing about his own death, after all...won't your 'people' come to miss you when you're gone?"

Susumu snapped the leathery wrist coils of his gloves, closing his eyes and humming his amusement. "So naïve, as always," he said without a single shift in tone. Though his mask was stripped away, his attitude had hardly changed. His voice was softer by a degree and his build was just the tiniest bit slimmer, but it was unquestionably the same man as was being portrayed by his clones for so long. "I've longed for the thrill of combat; merely reliving the memories of a battle through a defeated clone, as it turns out, is not enough for me. The Hyuga are not known for bloodthirst, but perhaps I have picked it up from certain friends." He could see Mamban lurking within the trees, a bandaged arm and replaced mask the telltale signs that set him apart from his comrades. He could also see the single-file line approaching from the depths of the village, led by the familiar but long-altered faces of Cassy and Seshu.

"Why did you wait so long to challenge me, then?" Kaine asked, gripping his own gloves and checking their tightness. He patted each of the pouches along his vest. Kunai, check. Wire string, present. Paper bombs, limited but available. Sword? He reached his hand over his shoulder to grasp the hilt for a quick check. It wasn't his blade, exactly, but it would do. "Were you afraid that your thrill would be cut short by death?"

Susumu clapped his hands together, and for a moment Kaine was flinching and wary of action, but it was a pointed snap of mirth. "Even now, you are still so arrogant. Hasn't your failure at Akemi's hands taught you anything, Kaine? Your overconfidence is so often your downfall. There is nothing that you can do to win this fight, but it could have been so easily avoided. Now, before we begin and as we wait for the important spectators to gather, will you tell me what it was that changed your mind? I can see that you are of sound mind and body; there is no genjutsu upon you, this time. Though your heart beats quickly, your eyes are convinced that you have done the right thing."

Kaine looked to his right, finally taking note of the gathering crowd. He saw only two of the black robes; why would mindless husks care about watching a fight? Cassy and Seshu led the pack, but Medo and numerous other Truth Village residents were clumping together. Sammy was nowhere to be seen; maybe she had taken Kaine's advice and ran as far as she could. Good—at least then, he could take the credit for saving at least one poor soul. His only misgiving was that he hoped that she would have taken more of them with her.

"It was a lot of things, really, but it started with a girl named Makoto Mori. You know Rika, yeah? Well, Makoto's her sister." Kaine began, distracting himself from the thickening supply of gawkers at his side. "She showed me kindness. And not 'save my life' kindness, or anything so grand or predictable as that. Kakashi and Tenzo physically saved me, but Makoto...she _cooked stew_ for me...she _read_ to me while I was in pain. She gave me _smiles_ without asking for anything in return. She offered me a home; a place to call mine, a place to feel loved. Above it all, though? She gave me _tears_...her own _honest_ _tears_ that were shed shamelessly for me, and for _me_ _alone_. She could see the path I was on, even if I couldn't. She didn't want me to _die_."

"Do you think that I wanted you to die, Kaine—that Akemi or your students would have wished for your death? Whatever disagreements you may have had with me, or with them, you must know that you were always a part of our family." Susumu seemed genuinely remorseful as he soaked in the short tale. "I would have died for you, Kaine; my student, my hand, and my son. It is not easy for me to take this position against you, or for me to raise my hands with the intention to kill..." As he spoke, his hands did raise, palms flat and pointed toward the youth who shared his space.

Kaine braced himself as Susumu stepped closer, but he didn't flinch—not until those hard, gloved palms were placed upon his chest before he could blink. The Hyuga was faster than expected, but rather than feel pain, there was a soothing moisture that seemed to seep like lotion into the burning agony that filled Kaine's core. The haphazardly-burned slices and dimples were instead replaced by newly-healed tissue. Kaine gasped as his lungs could grab a bit more air than before: "What are you doing...? I'm supposed to be your enemy. You don't heal an enemy..."

Susumu finished his medical care with a wry smile, then stepped back. His hair was blowing in the wind, its waist-length black strands bound together at the top and bottom by matching, dark ties made of simple cotton. "Though you are a traitor, and I thought that perhaps I could dispatch you without grief, it simply is not so." He took in a deep breath of fresh air, looking up into the sun with his own eyes, feeling its brightness along his paled skin. "I have countless regrets to survive with already; I would rather not endure the regret of facing you at anything other than your very best."

The cured party couldn't deny that he felt much better; as Kakashi had warned him, the self-cauterizing method was not one to be done on a whim. If Kaine hadn't felt like his life was slipping away with each new beat of his heart, he never would have turned to such a technique. To be healed afterward by the man who forced his hand was an insult, but he felt nothing but compassion from the energies that had flowed through him and mended his innards. Running his hand along his chest and feeling strong beats through his vest, Kaine scowled. "I don't need your pity," he said with dourness.

"It's not pity, but respect," Susumu said as a teacher scolding a child.

"If you had respected your people from the start, we wouldn't be in this situation now," Kaine turned back, adopting the same chastising tone. He had been blindsided by the healing touch; it was nerve-wracking to imagine how ferocious the unmasked Minoru would prove to be when he was going for a kill. The crowd that had gathered was now talking together, but no matter what Kaine heard from their lips, they did not seem to question their master or his identity. A few had even begun to call him 'Master Susumu' without hesitation.

Cassy's voice piped over the rest, her hand framing her lovely lips as she called out to cheer sadistically. "Come on, Susumu! Tear him to shreds—but don't hurt his face! I want to model a puppet after him after he's dead and I want the details of his painful final expression to be _just _right." She was jumping up and down, bouncing her assets shamelessly and drawing a few eyes. Whomever was looking was marked as a mental note in the deadly woman's mind. She liked to know who her admirers were.

Seshu was more reserved, and after a few of his charge's hops, he seized her by the ear and pulled her down to earth with his cheeks puffed from annoyance. "Cut it out, Cass, you're distracting them...I want to see how this turns out."

"You know who's going to win though, don't you? That Hamasaki kid could barely even stand up to little old _me; _what chance has he got against the Byakugan?" Pulling her ear out of Seshu's pinching grip with a pout of her lips, she then brushed a segment of hanging bangs away from her eyes, peering out from beneath the unruly jungle to run her sight along the would-be combatants. "Gotta admit, though, I think _I_ come out ahead no matter who wins."

Ignoring the peanut gallery, Kaine reached to the back of his head and tightened the wrap of his black band, securing his swirling leaf symbol as firmly as could be. "You might regret being so merciful," he said, trying to talk himself through the terror.

Susumu called out with a firm, demanding voice without turning his head. Even without the visual aid of his tightened white pupils looking her way, Cassy felt his sight upon her, focused and judgemental. "Cassy; since you're so enthusiastic, would you like to officiate the match? Tell us when to begin...and don't step in to stop the battle until one of the two of us has died. Surrender is not an option."

Cassy perked up when she was mentioned by name, and a catlike show of gratitude began along the corners of her mouth. "Right-e-o, Susumu, sir!" she was mocking him, but she followed his request and raised a hand. Just as she did so, Susumu formed a few seals and erected a barrier around the training field as was his custom; a smaller form of the one that had previously lined the village proper. "Ready!" Cassy shouted, spunky and chipper, ready to drop her hand like a starter flag. "Set...! And..."

"Wait!" Susumu called out with a raised hand, interrupting the woman's momentum. She nearly fell forward as she tried to stop the thrust of her downward-slicing hand through the air. She looked at Susumu threateningly, but she knew his barrier would deflect any punishment she tried to mete out. Susumu took his hand down and spoke again. "Three shinobi are approaching from the East...Akemi Yamaguchi, Rika Mori...and one who is unfamiliar to me."

"Probably Kinoe," Seshu said with a grind of his back teeth. "Let me take care of them all..."

"No, Seshu," Susumu said succinctly. "Let them witness this; I want all parties to be aware that I am willing to fight for the truth."

Seshu glanced up toward Mamban, who was perched lazily in a tree upon the other side of the field from where his lieutenants stood. He seemed to be spacing out, hardly looking anywhere that mattered. "Bah, suit yourself...If they start razing buildings, I'm not going to feel sorry for your termites," Seshu begrudgingly backed down, dropping the clenched fists he hadn't realized were trembling at waist height. He wanted his vengeance against the man who should have killed him, but acting against Susumu was foolish for almost anyone—that was _part_ of why he obeyed. The other part was that Seshu did truly want to see the upstart young Kaine get stomped utterly into the dirt for his arrogance. He hadn't met the kid himself, but Cassy told him quite a bit.

"That's pretty brave of you, Susumu," Kaine said over the murmuring crowd. Though their loyalty to Minoru was absolute, some of the skeptical minds among the village were leery of allowing Leaf ninjas into their borders. With the barrier down, there was a pressure felt by all; the world was closing in around them, little by little, and all they had as a defense was a kunai in one hand and a prayer in the other.

"Do not call me brave," Susumu lectured, taking another deep inhale and spreading his arms out. The barrier was completely erected in a cube around himself and his prey. "I only wish to earn Akemi and Rika back into my fold by demonstrating what happens to traitors...I sorely miss their presence in the village."

"You think they'd bow to you even if you _could _kill me?" Kaine quipped back, linking his fingers together and forcing them to bend, cracking all his joints and then tilting his head to do the same through his neck. The crunch of popping air signified his limberness. "When are we going to start!?" he called impatiently toward Cassy, assuming that she was still the one in charge.

Cassy was digging in her ear with a pinky, flicking away some unsightly buildup that didn't match the smoothness of her skin. When she was called out, she blinked, then smiled unsettlingly—she still wasn't used to being without a mask even after two weeks. The crowd was once a lump, but it began to fan out, students and teachers taking places around the wide barrier and getting seated for a good show. Many of them probably failed to grasp the stakes of the occurrence, but they all understood that it was sure to be a spectacle. Cassy shrugged, lifting her hand and hurrying along with her response. "Oh, well, _he_ told me to wait, so, uh..._**NOW**_!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, producing a shriek like a banshee that startled the unprepared.

At the screech of Cassy's voice, Susumu made the first move. Kaine was ready for anything, but he wasn't ready for what followed. Crossing his arms, at least able to anticipate that the first blow was going to land at his chest, he took a full strike against locked wrists. His limbs absorbed the impact of a slapping palm. The force sent him stumbling back, but he did not fall. Feeling the intense force of a bare-handed strike, Kaine quickly decided that his bare hands weren't going to do much good. He tried to swing a kick for the other man's legs, wanting to catch him off guard, but the Byakugan was too effective. Every move that was made had been seen as it happened.

Susumu leapt over Kaine's head while he was still spinning in a grounded sweep, and upon landing, the master twisted his waist around and whipped his own sandaled foot out to slash his heel across his student's unprotected cheek. The impact was fierce, slicing a cut into Kaine's tanned face and sending him into a spiraling roll along the dirt. The victim tried to catch himself, but grasping at the ground was only good for producing more clouds of dust to follow behind him. Susumu allowed his student to regroup on the far side of the barrier's range, having sent the poor soul nearly a dozen yards out with a single glancing blow. "You'll have to do better, Kaine. Anticipate."

"Anticipate...what do you think this is, you bastard? You think I want to listen to more of your advice!?" Kaine got onto his feet and unreeled a spool of wire string that was tied to a row of paper bombs folded into compact squares. "I'm here to kill you and take your place, remember?"

"How could I forget? You were born to be a violent man...combat is your birthright, as assured by your inherited power." Susumu was idle, bent at both knees and his feet spread apart. One hand was extended forward, a palm opened, while the other was tucked close to his gut for quick defense. "Born with a coveted gift, yet hated for its existence...I saw that ability latent within you at the very moment I laid my eyes upon your starved ribs."

Wiping the blood from his cheek, Kaine shook his hand and splashed the excess fluid onto the dirt below. "You're just another name on the list of people who want to abuse my gift," he said. Already he was feeling the dizziness of blows; the might of the barely-touching lash of a foot across his cheek had knocked the sense clean out of him. "I didn't even know about it until Kakashi and Tenzo told me what it could become." Kaine smacked his hands together, still having plenty of chakra to draw from. Though his Storm Release could suck chakra from others, it couldn't replenish his supplies with what it stole—it wasn't ideal, but it did well for its purposes. "Were you afraid that I'd use it against you if you taught me how to wield it?"

Susumu shook his head, tsking. "Your arrogance knows no bounds, does it? I have always seen your foolishness from the outside looking in, but to face you as an opponent...to feel how meaningless your struggle against me truly is...it is enlightening. How is it that you can display such confidence before certain defeat?"

Kaine snarled, his mouth shut tight as a few hot breaths dried the inside of his nose. The string of folded paper bombs had been wrapped around his arms while he brought his hands together to crash his fists into one another. The familiar blue crackle of his Storm Release began to course through his limbs from one to the next, and his eyes took on the bright glow of raw power. Clouds took shape around his shoulders and ankles, then floated away to become their own entities. "I didn't know what to call it, myself," Kaine said through electrically charged teeth, the white enamel occasionally showing blue streaks of stray energy. "Figured I was just stubborn or stupid, probably both."

"Most certainly both," Susumu answered him. The display was undeniably impressive, yet the man who was its target seemed far less than concerned by what he saw. "The ingredients are there; the form is correct," he said, spreading his feet a bit wider and pulling his arm back with an open palm at its end. "And the control is refined," he commented further as the dark clouds crackled with tiny snaps of thunder, echoing inside of the barrier. The sound that escaped was muffled; most of what was said and done stayed within the energy wall. "Unfortunately..."

* * *

Around that time, Tenzo, Akemi, and Rika arrived near the border of the village and met no resistance, not even from Mamban's faceless goons. The barrier was dropped as planned and the earth quaked to signal their window of approach. The trio had expected to arrive at a scene of chaos and full-scale battle between Kaine and the stacked forces of the village and its guests...yet all they found were silent, masked statues and fallen trees. And then there was Sammy—she was running around in a misguided panic, trying to figure out what to do now that her orders from her previous teacher had become difficult to follow.

Rika recognized her first, though Akemi had a ding of familiarity a moment after Rika called the other girl's name: "Oy, Sammy! What the heck's going on with you?"

Sammy's mouth dropped open, her hands still woven together and her sleeve still caked with melting ice. "Rika! Akemi-sensei? What are you two doing here? Kaine-sensei told me that you both ran off, and...why are you wearing Leaf Village headbands? Who's that guy?" She was stuttering and asking questions without realizing that she wasn't waiting for the answers.

"Slow down, girl," Akemi stepped up to her, putting one hand on each of Sammy's shoulders and giving her a firm shake, knocking her hands apart.

"Noo, don't do that!" the frightened deer lamented, then pushed her hands back together to keep the chakra flowing. "Kaine-sensei told me about the poison and how I have to keep my chakra flowing, or else it would take over again!"

Tenzo approached behind Akemi, putting a hand on the latter's shoulder and nudging her aside. "I can help with that; I've actually looked into that poison of his, and I think this should be enough to counteract its effects for a few hours, at least. Open your mouth, would you?"

Sammy looked hesitant. "I see those headbands...I don't trust you."

"Trust him, Sammy; he's saved our lives more than once now! His name's Tenzo, he's a super nice guy and he's best friends with Kakashi Hatake!" Rika was trying to sell the man's virtues, but at the mention of Kakashi's name, Sammy went white.

"Kakashi...? Isn't he the one who's going to slaughter this whole village by sundown?" Sammy panicked again, realizing that she had taken her hands apart. "I _won't_ trust him!"

Rika rolled her eyes. "Well, trust _me, _then. You've known me for _how long...? _And I've never once lied to you!"

Sammy started counting on her fingers, then ran out of fingers after ten to count the years they had known one another. "...Fine, but if this kills me, I'm gonna haunt you, Rika Mori. Mark my words." She closed her eyes and opened her mouth, but the suspense was killing her. She peeked through a sliver of open eyelid just in time to see Tenzo dropping a tiny seed onto her tongue. She blinked, having expected something bigger. "Tha's id!?" she asked without closing her mouth.

"Swallow." Tenzo instructed, putting a hand to the base of her chin and leaning her head back to aid her in the decision. Sammy took the dose and then made a face like it tasted rather lousy. "How do you feel now?" Tenzo asked, ignoring her disapproval toward the flavor.

The third and youngest woman rolled her tongue around in her mouth and took her hands apart, looking at her fingertips and expecting something to take over her senses at any second, but it never did. She made a fist in both hands, then relaxed her fingers and did it again. "...I feel pretty good. What's in that thing you gave me?"

"Just a dose of my own chakra, kind of an antidote for your phony master's poison. Now, if you're thinking straight, can you tell us what's going on here?" Tenzo stepped back, giving Sammy some space while she pulled at her short hair.

"Ohh, I got attacked by a couple of ruffians that came in with that Mamban guy, but before that, Kaine was telling me that something bad was about to happen and that I should get out of the village as soon as possible...but then it happened, and there was yelling, and trees were falling, and I was scared, and then the three of you showed up wearing Leaf symbols...and now I don't know what to think anymore."

Tenzo took in all the random words with impeccable patience, then when it seemed like she was finished talking, he closed his eyes and folded his arms. "Right, well...he's correct. You should leave this village right now. Be especially careful around these masked guys...they seem like they're waiting for somebody's order. You probably want to be gone before it's given..."

"What about you guys?" Sammy asked, but she was already starting the trek toward the outskirts of the village where the trio had come in from. "Shouldn't you be leaving, too?"

Akemi shook her head, taking over the conversation from Tenzo. "Nah, we've got one of our own in here...Kaine may be a lunkhead, but he's my brother, Rika's teacher, and now we're all kind of village-buddies with Tenzo, here. It's a long story, but you don't need to be a part of it anymore...now get running, or else we're going to recruit you!" Aki wagged her finger in front of Sammy's nose, threatening to poke it.

"Erm...yes, Akemi-sensei!" Sammy declared. She was usually combative with Kaine, but something about Akemi's mannerisms made her much more likely to obey. With a final nod and a wish of "good luck" she was scampering away from the bizarre land.

Akemi took the lead, knowing the village better than the other two, and spotted a dozen different rows of footprints all leading off toward the training field. "Say, remember when you were worried that Kaine might do something irrational?" Akemi asked over her shoulder at Tenzo, brushing away some of her blonde locks of hair.

Tenzo nodded, feeling rather edgy while he was surrounded by the unmoving guardians of the Truth Village. They were Mamban's soldiers; he could tell that by their outfits and their zombie-like stance. He only half-heard Akemi's question, far more focused on how they were able to easily enter the village. Rika was muted, too; Akemi was the only one who seemed comfortable in that place. It was the first real place she had ever called home, after all. A change in the scenery wasn't enough to make it a _different_ place; just the same place with a different _look_.

"I'm pretty sure he did the most irrational thing he could've possibly done," Akemi continued, perturbed by the silence behind her but certain that her teammates were still quite alert, simply speechless after their run-in with Sammy. "Check that out," she indicated with a point of her finger; down the side of a hill and a few paces off, there was the beginning of a scattered crowd and a dense white barrier, transparent but not perfectly so. There were smokey waves that marked imperfections in the shield's construction. Inside the semi-clear barrier, black clouds could be seen swirling and growing in size. "Isn't that Kaine's Storm Release down there?"

"Damn it, you're right! This is exactly what Kakashi and I were warning him against!" Tenzo declared clearly, grabbing Rika by the wrist and running forward, taking Akemi as well and dragging them closer to the site of conflict. As they got near and broke through the obscuring line of trees, it became obvious that Kaine and Susumu were locked together within that barrier and that nobody else seemed intent on helping either one. Though it was likely a trap, the danger Kaine was in had forced Tenzo to act—he refused to let their inside man go up in smoke; Tenzo was setting his life and pride on the line. "What's going on here?" Tenzo asked to the nearest group, so happening to contain Medo.

"Kaine's gone off the deep end, and he challenged Master Minoru to some kind of insane duel to the death...now he's waving around some kind of power that none of us have ever seen before," Medo answered with a lean of his shoulder. "Say...you're those Leaf folks. And _you_ look an awful lot like Akemi Yamaguchi, miss..."

Akemi twitched her brow, clenching a fist and wanting to slam it into Medo's forehead for the remark. It wasn't particularly offensive, but she found an excuse to get angry about it. "Are you saying there are a bunch of other girls who look just like me, Medo? I'll rip your eyes out so you never see them again!" Aki was about to pounce on him, but Rika held her back with wide eyes and an apologetic smile on her face; the two mismatched expressions combined to make her look rather insane, just like her sensei.

Tenzo was beyond baffled, at that point. Rather than focus on the crowd as a whole, he looked for Mamban—instead, he saw an unfamiliar woman and an all-too-familiar white-haired man; a man who had introduced himself as Seshu of the Frosted River. It could have been a coincidence, but when the fellow turned his head to mutter something to his female companion, Tenzo caught a glance of the edges of his black curse seal. _What...? How can he still be alive...? Has Mamban turned him into some kind of unliving puppet? _Tenzo thought to himself, moving to blend in with the crowd. Most of the attendees were too engrossed with the fight to pay much attention to him as he got into a subtle position. There was no fooling Susumu's Byakugan; he had been seen long ago, but he could at least avoid drawing more attention. _I hope Kakashi gets here, soon...I don't think Kaine can win this fight alone._

* * *

Susumu was standing before all those growing clouds with a gentle smile from cheek to cheek. "Unfortunately...your chakra simply isn't strong enough to compete with me, Kaine." With his hand previously cocked back, Susumu waited for the fluffy black entities to spread further outward. With his Byakugan, he studied the composition of the technique and also looked upon how draining it proved to be on its user. "The difference between us is so vast that you have no hope of overcoming it." With a grunt of effort, the confident leader thrust his palm forward in a flash, the sheer speed and force of the open-ended strike bringing with it a solid vortex of natural, whipping winds. As the swooshing vortex found and impaled a growing cloud, the dark energy was dispersed into small tufts and then ultimately eliminated from existence.

The rush of air that dispelled Kaine's cloud continued forward; as it sliced past each individual growth, the wind slowed considerably, but its momentum was carried all the way to the young man whose arms were still locked together in concentration. By the time Kaine realized what had happened, his head was reeling back and his hair was blasting side to side in the lofty current. Though he was not knocked off of his feet, he was forced to take a step back, then two more, simply to remain standing against the colossal force. The howl was deafening as it filled his ears and destroyed his attempted assault, leaving him dumbfounded.

From the outside of the battle, Rika looked surprised by how easily Kaine's attempt had been nullified. "Wait, can't Kaine's Storm Release suck up chakra? How'd it get destroyed by wind chakra, then?"

Tenzo was momentarily in shock, as well, but he had seen the happenings quite clearly. "That wasn't chakra," he said with a slow contemplation. "That was the air that was generated by his hand's movement...It's an advanced technique among the Hyuga Clan; they call it Air Palm, or Vacuum Palm. It's a strike so swift and powerful that it creates emptiness in front of the palm, and then air rushes in to fill the void and is carried forward to an opponent. To think that Susumu's physical power could allow him to destroy Storm Release...it's unbelievable."

"Can he win?" Akemi asked, slipping her arm around Rika's hopeless shoulder. Things were looking bad for their friend, but she was already trying to think of ways to get into the barrier and help him out.

"No, there's nothing he can do against that kind of strength. Susumu has at least ten years of experience over Kaine, not to mention the techniques of his clan and the insight of the Byakugan...on top of it all, there's a curse seal someplace on his body that feeds him chakra and can be unleashed to give him a boost of raw power...and Magnet Release as well." Tenzo was surveying the land around him. There were hundreds of Mamban's soldiers, but he figured that they shouldn't prove to be much of a threat. Though, to the contrary, Seshu and Cassy were there, and Mamban was likely skulking nearby. With just himself, Akemi, Rika, and Kaine, there was little to be done but watch and wait.

* * *

"The gang's nearly here," Mamban muttered to himself under the mask. He stood upon a slender branch, booted, flat-soled feet resting comfortably against the curving, dried-up arm. He stepped impatiently from left to right, skittering like a crab from one end to the other of his perch and wriggling his fingers with anticipation. "So soon, so very soon," the words emerged jittery and eager, talking to himself but feeling the weight of his control over all three hundred and twelve of his long-range puppets. They had each been human, once, but no longer—with his seal in place and a particularly intense mind-wiping technique utilized, there was nothing left to preserve their souls.

He had seen Tenzo, Akemi, and Rika arrive from his vantage point—he had also seen how effortlessly Susumu was dismantling Kaine's abilities. "Come on, now...you can push him harder than _that,_ can't you?" Mamban groaned to himself, arms dangling down from his shoulders; on the right of his body, the bandages were still in place, but his control over the limb had become certain. He gave it another test, flexing his fingers in unison and finding that there was no delay between his natural appendage and the 'borrowed' one. "My dear Cassy spared your life to watch you grow, good little Kaine, yet you throw her generous mercy away on a futile struggle against your superior? Such a pity that is," he monologued to nobody, reaching off to the side of a tree and seizing the neck of a brown snake that had thought to blend in with the bark.

Dragging the squirming, scaly tube away from its safety, the creature hissed in agitation, all of its muscles working toward escape, desperately wishing for freedom despite having no idea what the alternative was. A dumb beast with no idea of its own capacity could still think clearly enough to fight for its life against impossible odds. That little auburn snake would never escape Mamban's pinching grip, just as Kaine Hamasaki could never defeat Susumu Hyuga. "He'll try, though," the cruel inhuman told the little captive in his gloved left hand. "He'll try his hardest, just like you," he muttered, bringing his right hand up to run it gently along the body of the snake. "But he'll die, just like you," he finished, the fingers of his left hand leaking acid over the body of the serpent. It immediately tensed and then fell limp before dissolving into nothing.

* * *

Kaine was panting harshly after regaining his bearings. The rush of wind had sent him off balance, but he hadn't seen exactly how it formed. He had assumed, like Rika, that the gust came from a wind element technique, and he faced the same befuddled consideration that his Storm Release should have absorbed it. "So you've got some tricks, huh? Well, I suppose now's the time I should let you know that I've been holding back, Susumu," he said. Whether it was a lie or not, he didn't even know. There was always that voice in his head; it only kicked in when he was desperate. It gave him strength that he never deserved, urged him to survive things that he never should have endured.

"Spare me your posturing, Kaine; I can see your chakra. It runs ragged through your system. Your muscles are already weakening in their expansions and contractions; your electrical impulses are weakened by the vast expenditures of your kekkei genkai...you should not so carelessly wield such tremendously taxing power. While Akemi has always understood the idea of turning weaknesses into strength, you have always somehow managed to turn your strengths into weaknesses..." Susumu shook his head, shutting his eyes and looking down to the ground with disappointment through sealed lids. "Perhaps my faith in you has been misplaced, after all."

Kaine shook his head, gathering his senses together. It would have been worthless to try another round of storm release, so he reached instead for his weapon. With the explosive tags still wrapped around both of his arms, he took a deep breath and spread his feet apart. "Now's a good time, I guess," he said to himself, looking along the wires that supported the explosive squares. They were each about the size of a walnut, and nearly as thick; their folds made them more like tiny bomb balls than paper tags, but he had to improvise for his coming plan. He had to admit that he took some inspiration from Kakashi's story about the opponent he fought. The Jonin's words turned up in Kaine's thoughts as he plotted his next move. _His punches exploded against the air; even when he missed, I felt the damage from the concussions._

"It won't work," Susumu warned Kaine as he observed the strategic arrangement of the bombs. He could easily tell what they were; it was nearly obvious even without his enhanced vision. "You'll only end up hurting yourself."

"Maybe," Kaine answered, raising his wrapped arms and charging forward. "But I'll hurt you worse!" He varied his approach, stepping left and right and weaving down as he closed in on Susumu. The latter did attempt another vacuum palm to throw him off-kilter, but the approaching bullet whizzed away from its influence, calling his experience back to his battle in the forest—the edges of the wind had sucked him off his path, but it taught him to always give an air technique a half-again berth when trying to dodge it. Susumu didn't step back, but he did raise his brows in surprise when Kaine managed to close in and throw a punch.

It was a futile punch, however, as Susumu's hand deftly caught the charging youth by the wrist and aimed to throw him over a shoulder, tossing him up and around like a plaything. As Susumu gripped Kaine's arm, he jammed fingers into the overeager attacker's chakra points with his other hand mid-trajectory. He focused on shutting the limb down entirely before spinning himself one full rotation and flinging his student away with mighty force. He also set off the flint trigger on a few of the paper bombs beforehand.

Kaine was still coming to grips with his ineffective assault when he felt the burning sparks beginning to spread along some of his ill-used paper bombs. He yelped and rolled onto his side, tugging with his good arm against the strands of thread that carried the volatile explosives, throwing them away from himself with barely enough time to spare before they burst into flame and soot. The impact was forceful, shoving the grounded Kaine a few feet away from the explosion and rolling him over a couple of times. He was dirty and battered, blood coming out of his cheek and running down a few nicks in the side of his mobile arm. He had raised it to defend himself from the explosion, catching a few rocks and pebbles through his tattered sleeves. "Should've known that'd be a bad idea," Kaine said through a clench of teeth. "Alright, looks like I've got no choice but to do things my way..."

"By all means, try it any way you like...I am too strong for you, Kaine, and no matter how vehemently you deny your place in the world, no matter how violently you struggle against the inevitable, I will defeat you with ease and string your corpse above the entrance to our village." There was little malice in Susumu's voice; his proposal was purely pragmatic. "You betrayed my trust, Kaine Hamasaki. If there is one crime that I can never forgive, it is _betrayal_..."

"I don't want your forgiveness. I don't even want you to acknowledge me anymore...I only want to cause you _pain _in returnfor what you've caused. You've been tolerating a madman, Susumu! Mamban and his ilk; they're here to destroy everything you thought to build! They're not the Leaf; they're not even Danzo's anymore!" Kaine's right arm was limp from Susumu's precision strikes, reduced to dead weight without feeling or chakra flow. "They're sadists, slavers, and murderers! A change in the wind could be all it takes for these monsters to rise up and kill us all right this second! How could you have fallen so low...? The Minoru I knew would have rather starved to death than accept this kind of help..." Kaine fought back the urge to shed a tear, wiping dirt from his eyes and focusing himself. "The sad thing, the real _truth _of it all, is that you didn't change like I thought you had. You've _always_ been this coward who hid behind his barrier, afraid to sully his own hands with blood. A leader who, rather than kill the 'unworthy' himself, sets his people to fight one another and kill the weak. Even if that weren't enough to brand you a disgrace to your clan, you've done it all through the guise of a clone...a clone of a man with a name that means _nothing_. Does it assuage your guilt when you tell yourself that you haven't killed them all with your own two hands?"

Susumu was scowling, his mouth turned down into a rigid frown and his brow jutting out with a flagrant irritation. "You forget yourself, Kaine. Label yourself as you will, claim allegiance to whomever you think deserves it, but do not call my leadership into question. I have kept the strong alive, allowed them to flourish...do you think that they fear your masters in the Leaf any longer? No, Kaine—the Leaf fears _us_. Why else would they send Kakashi Hatake to solve the problem? Why else would they rob us of our brightest and most powerful shinobi before brazenly sending them in as decoys? Even now, Kaine, your friends are looking to you to solve this 'problem' of theirs..." Susumu turned his head toward Tenzo, Akemi, and Rika. "They want to see you win, but not because they want you to be happy with your victory...they want you to win so that they can absorb our village's power into their own; so that they can turn you against the next village with the courage to be independent, then the next, and the next, until you all either die or become monsters just like Kakashi!"

Kaine roared in defiance, punching himself in the useless shoulder as if trying to restore life to the paralyzed system. All the while, he raged through his sore throat. "If I have a choice between being like _you_, and being like _Kakashi_, I'd choose to be Kakashi _any time_. I admit that at first, I took him as a bastard who was no good and too pompous; I expected him to stab me in the back if I ever turned away from him. But that's not who he turned out to be...he's not the man you think he is, Susumu; he's a _hero_, a hero who's like everything you _should have been_. He _saves _people from scum like Mamban, rather than throwing them into waiting jaws like _you've_ done. How long do you think it will be before those jaws snap shut with _you_ in between them?"

"He'll find that I make a bitter meal, Kaine," Susumu said with purpose, then shook his head. "No matter; I've had enough of your prattling. Prepare for the end." Susumu went on the offensive, fast and hard, and when he rose a hand to strike for Kaine's neck, to end his breath forever, he found himself perplexingly dodged. His sight had not lost Kaine; the Byakugan could see him clearly. His target had—rather simply—moved too quickly to be struck. "What the...?" Susumu found himself asking out loud before he felt an electrically charged backhand strike him across the face, jolting his nerves and sending him a few paces to the side. He didn't lose his footing; the jolt didn't paralyze him. It was enough of a smack to draw him toward the defensive, however, as Kaine followed up with a second punch using his other, previously-disabled arm. Susumu rose a forearm in time to block, that time, but he found the impact too hard to properly guard against. He was staggered backward, then took a clean hit to the bottom of his chin courtesy of the tip of Kaine's booted foot.

As the proud Minoru backpedaled and brought a hand up to brush along his chin, he looked baffled toward the man who hit him so hard. It was Kaine, no doubt about it—he had expected some trick, some clone or transformation swap with Kakashi, but it was the man he recognized and had raised from the age of ten. Kaine opened his mouth into a confident smirk, pulling both working arms together and running a current through them. He had found his center; he could feel his strength surging. "I told you, Susumu...didn't I? I was _holding back_. I've _always_ been holding back...I've been _afraid _of fighting, but never realized it."

"Don't play games with me, Kaine Hamasaki! Your body does not grow stronger just because you've pretended to abandon fear!" Susumu moved in for the attack again, folding both hands together and concentrating a vacuum palm that would flood the whole barrier-encased arena with violent wind. As the air whipped about, slamming into Kaine's chest, the target took a step back but stood firm as his hair whipped around his bloody cheek and covered his ears.

Kaine was panting, fighting the urge to slay, to violently maim and destroy. _Focus all that energy you've got, _Kakashi had told him during his two weeks of training. _You're strong, but like I told you before, you're sloppy. When you get mad, you exert a lot of raw power, but you're terrible at controlling it. Find something to focus on—keep your mind clear. _ _Pick something that gives you peace; maybe it's a stream, or a flock of migrating birds. It could be an object, a place, or a person that is special to you. Reach for that thing, that one, single, most important thing in your life, and grab it with both hands. When it's in your grasp, fight for it._

Kaine felt his blood pumping hot in his veins, he could feel the savagery of his heartbeat as it shoved into his ribs. His ears should have been flooded by fury at that point, but his body and senses were eerily calm. He focused on that thing, as Kakashi said—the one thing that was most important to him. He saw a single droplet of water falling until it splashed against a wooden surface. It was not a drop of rain, but that very first tear. It was the first thing he had ever seen that existed solely because somebody else had chosen to love him. "She cried for me, Susumu...not even Akemi had ever cried for mebefore," Kaine said through soft breath that reached deep inside of him. "She doesn't want me to die, and I'm not going to let her down today. I'll _never_ let that girl, Makoto Mori, down _again!_"

Kaine made a move, this time choosing to go on the offensive. He primed a lance of lightning-water in one hand while he ran, throwing it along the way. His chakra was more potent than ever, but Susumu was ready for the onslaught and began to twirl in place, forcing chakra out from his center to form the famous Hyuga defense, the heavenly rotation. Blue energy took shape in a sphere around the man and his Byakugan, deflecting the thick bolt away with its outward force and knocking it into the barrier over his shoulder. It exploded in a breathtaking shower of yellow sparks and water droplets, causing rain to fall for a split second in their battlefield.

While Susumu's rotation came to an end, Kaine was still charging, and he delivered a punch which Susumu narrowly stepped aside of. There was a crease beside his lips on both sides, and his brow was crinkled with concentration. He was trying hard to stay on defense, raising his arms to block the rushing force of Kaine's blows, but his body was relatively weak on its own merits. The Truth's leader found himself pushed back, feet dragging in the dirt while he tried to gain purchase on the ground, leaving behind deep skip marks where his sandals scraped harshly. The hits were softened by the strength of his interlocked arms, but he was feeling the beating along his bones and skin beneath the black lining of his uniform.

Kaine felt every strike hit a solid spot on his opponent, aiming for different parts of his defense and seeking to overpower his block. Sweeping kicks, spinning backhands, solid haymakers; all of them were blocked or narrowly avoided, but damage was being dealt superficially. He was pushing Susumu back, and it felt invigorating. "You'll pay for the things you've done! Tito's dead, Nick's dead, Mako and Fiona may never wake again!" He reeled his head back and slammed his forehead protector into Susumu's blocking arms, causing his opponent to tumble back onto the ground, but the roll was completed and the Hyuga found himself on his feet again.

Kaine pushed his advantage, backing Susumu up against the ridge of his own barrier. The Hyuga winced as he felt a heated burn at his back, propelling him forward—he was not immune to the potency of his own perimeter. Kaine snarled, gathering up all the force his body could muster and shoving his shoulder into his enemy's chest, heaving him bodily against the barrier and holding him there until the smell of burning clothes filled the air. Susumu refused to scream in pain, but his jaw was tightly clenched and his throat was showing veins as he fought the urge to collapse. With the initial shock to his system overcome, he centered his mind and focused strength into his legs, heaving his knee upward to slam into Kaine's gut—or so he expected. Instead, his knee was blocked deftly and the other male stood firm in place. Another knee, this time more powerful and coated with extra chakra, collided with Kaine's palm and lifted him up by the body, sending him back and away.

Kaine twisted in the air to land on his own feet, a nimble dip of his body allowing him to absorb his falling momentum and touch the ground with two fingers to stabilize. "

Stepping away from his barrier and checking his back for damage, Susumu dusted himself off, feeling the pressure of his suddenly-noteworthy opponent. "So, I see that you've finally found a solid conviction in all the chaos that was dwelling within your mind. Remember: a righteous anger can be a powerful tool, Kaine, but do take care that you are not blinded by your own ambitions."

"Like you were?" Kaine spat, feeling the thrill of growing more capable on the spot. His muscles moved more easily; his eyes could see with greater clarity. Adrenaline or chakra, he didn't know, but something within him was surging and he could feel its unadulterated energy filling him like a cup that had been kept half-empty for its entire existence. For the first time in memory, he could finally hear the voice in his head with perfect fidelity. _Survive for me, Kaine, so we can move forward together. I'll make lots of stew._ All along, the voice that nudged him forward and pulled him out of the muck; the voice that forced him to eat, to drink, to keep walking on ruined feet...the unrelenting, ever-empowering voice had belonged to Makoto. Was it always that pretty little chirp? Was his mind playing tricks on him? He couldn't explain it, but he heard Makoto's voice again, this time a genuine memory of his. She was reading from one of Kakashi's lowbrow romance books; he could hear her despite being half-conscious in a hospital bunk at the time. Even then, he thought she was so sweet, always giving it her all whether he seemed alert or not. As the book said, and as Makoto repeated, _love doesn't always make sense. _

"Do not get ahead of yourself, Kaine. You are stronger than I thought, but it is far from enough to defeat me." Susumu pulled a row of kunai from within a vest pouch, tossing the five of them into the air and spreading his arms. As he did so, a blackness took over the left side of his face, flames that were pure abyss and which tainted the color of his skin like a spreading virus. As the curse mark took over half of his body, he smiled knowingly. The five kunai were then suspended in the air above his head, lingering obediently and bobbing up and down. "You're not strong enough to overcome this power without your weaponry."

* * *

Tenzo was impressed by Kaine's newfound resolve, to say the least—Kakashi had been training the young fellow in private whenever Tenzo was busy with the other part of his responsibilities. They must have had a breakthrough, just as he had. "Do it, Kaine...take him down," uttered Tenzo with a closed fist; Rika heard him whispering to himself, and she poked him on the side through his vest.

"So, what...? You think he can win now?" Rika inquired, hanging on Akemi's arm with one half and her other half prodding Tenzo with a teasing snicker. The wood user shrugged, moving to sit himself down and cross his legs. There was no sense getting worked up over the fight inside the barrier—he couldn't break it on his own, not like Kakashi could. No matter how strong either of them got, it always seemed like Kakashi was a step and a half further ahead. Even with his unique power over wood, he found himself getting jealous of Kakashi's natural prowess, despite being a very powerful, respected, and accomplished shinobi in his own right.

"Of course he can win!" Akemi shouted at the top of her lungs, throwing up an arm and cheering for her brother in the ring. "Come on, let's cheer for him! Go Kaine! Get 'im, Hamasaki! Sock him in the lying face!" Aki was throwing mock punches left and right, ripping herself away from Rika somewhat abruptly when the celebration erupted. Her student blushed and looked about the crowd, embarrassed. A lot of people were staring their way, brows lifted and mouths hanging agape.

"Aki, shh! They're still loyal to Minoru, remember?" Rika whispered into the other's ear, putting a hand on her shoulder and pulling her down to the ground to share a seat on the yellowed grass and dirt alongside Tenzo. "You're going to free them all soon, right? Like you freed Sammy?" she asked the man beside her, who nodded his response.

"They'll all be free by tonight, one way or another. If Kaine wins, Minoru's loyal followers probably won't take it lying down...and there's no telling what Mamban would do, either. Kakashi said he was going to take care of something before he joined us, but it hopefully won't be long before he arrives." Tenzo reached into a pouch on his hip and produced a food pill, thick and nourishing, before plopping it on his tongue and swallowing it whole. He could still taste it as it went down, but he was used to it. He passed one to Rika and one to Akemi; "Things are going to get bad no matter what happens, so you don't want to be hungry when they do."

"I'd rather have stew," Akemi admitted, but she rubbed her stomach when it growled its hunger audibly. "Whatever," she added in a smaller voice, clutching the thick black glob of mealy sustenance, dropping it down her throat like Tenzo had done. Rika did the same, but she had trouble getting it down. For a moment she seemed to choke on the round lump, but with a few beats of her chest she managed to hammer it loose and swallow it all the way.

"Good...now be ready. They're docile for now, but there's no telling what might set something off." Tenzo folded his arms, looking to Kaine in anticipation of what was to come—it was the moment where his solution to Susumu's Magnet Release would come into play. He was certain that it would be an effective counter, but it all depended on Kaine's ability to utilize what he was given.

* * *

Kaine reached up to the handle of his sword again, finding that it was still there. Susumu's true colors were revealed; the encroaching emptiness of his curse mark painted his skin and showed as a deep-rooted tattoo in several places. "Feeling the heat, eh?" came the taunt from Kaine, his hand stubbornly attached to his blade's hilt. He had to wait for the right moment; he couldn't play his cards too early, lest his enemy adapt to the moment. "That's your Magnet Style, then? Hell, if that's all, I could throw five kunai _without_ a fancy trick," he continued, hoping to goad the other man into making the first mistake.

"Even Kakashi Hatake could not overcome my power, Kaine...realistically, how do _you_ expect to do better?" Susumu was confident and rightly so—although he had certainly been pushed back by Kakashi, and would certainly have lost in any other circumstance, his lucky draw with the legendary shinobi was a large point of pride. "It doesn't matter how fast you've become, or how strong your fists are." He peeled back one of his dark sleeves, showing bruises along the forearms where he had blocked some of the heavier punches. With a glow along his fingertips, Susumu began to focus healing energy through himself, mending the black and blue splotches and returning them to a naturally pale skin tone. "It will take more than a few thumps to put me down."

"Kakashi came in alone to get us some valuable information, Susumu," Kaine answered, keeping his right hand on the hilt of his sword but keeping it sheathed, his left arm out for defense. "We knew all about your Magnet Release and its limits before we came here...he also told me who you used to be, and what you once stood for. You were a man of mercy, once—that life you led before wasn't a lie. Don't you, on some level, want to go _back_ to that?"

Susumu shook his head; the kunai that were hanging in the air were clumping together and beginning to spin individually. The rotation grew faster and tighter until the steel arrow-points turned indistinguishable from solid cones. "You were always a defiant child, but you sought affection wherever it could be found. You were a boy who wanted love but could never find it; whether you believe me when I say this or not, I am proud of you for finding something more honest than this village to trust in. If you somehow survive this day, do not make my mistakes. Do not betray who you are. It's too late for me, Kaine, but perhaps you still have a chance at a normal life."

* * *

_My name is Susumu; I am a forgotten member of the prestigious Hyuga Clan. As such, my full name is Susumu Hyuga. Others, perhaps most, now know me by the name of Minoru. _

_That is my student standing before me. It is with a swell of pride that I feel his raw energy building through his body. I can feel his devotion to his friends and family. I see his body working harder than it should be possible to work. In his eyes, I see a clear intent—his words suggest that he would like nothing more than to kill me, to avenge those three hundred and forty-seven stones laid out so tenderly in the garden. Beneath the words, far below it all, I see the bare change in him. Were we to have fought this way a mere month ago, my death would likely have been the final result. I lie to him, as I've lied for so many years: "Your will does not make your body strong," I had told him. He sees through my misdirection. I am trying to distract him—to prove him a fool—but Kaine Hamasaki is not a fool any longer._

_ Was it Kakashi, truly, who orchestrated this new focus in his thoughts? Or could it have been this young girl, this special flower named Makoto? Have we all shared this masterpiece from one hand to the next, each adding a single piece before declaring him 'finished' and sending him on his way? I wonder, still, who this boy is and why he happened to wander into my sight at such a time. Do I believe in destiny? No, I believe in magnetism—it was no coincidence that we met, but the time and place did not matter. It was not preordained or unavoidable, yet we were inexorably drawn to one another as opposite poles are drawn. I feel the magnetism of this planet flowing along my bones and sinking through my system to be redirected. The blades above my head are spinning with threatening swiftness; he is ready for me. He has convinced himself that he will not die here; that I will not be the one to kill him._

_ I afford one more, perhaps final, glance to my beloved people—the people whom, for their own good, are saturated with a toxin that forces their obedience. Akemi Yamaguchi is out there, too; has she come for the sole purpose of witnessing my defeat? Am I even to be defeated here and now? No. I, like Kaine, have resolved to survive this battle and emerge victorious. I do not want to kill him; every action I take has been halved by the weight of its intent, and it makes me weak. I have heard it said that once a man kills, he becomes less than human—that a part of him is torn out of his soul and flayed along the jagged rocks in a valley of hell. The truth is that a killer is __**more **__than human. As a man murders another, the weight of that slain person's remaining life is added to an anklet wrapped about the leg of the murderous sinner's eternal soul. To kill is to add weight; to die is to finally be freed of that weight._

_ Though the war has made my spirit heavy, I am quite afraid of death. There is no need to lie about it. On some basic, carnal level, all living things seek to continue living. When death is preferable to life, the time that is endured can hardly be called a life at all. Am I too far gone; irredeemable? Perhaps. But exactly where did I go wrong? Was it the moment the drill cracked through my chest and bore into my heart? Was it the instant I was branded by the white snake's seal? Was my innocence stolen from me, or did I forfeit it with full knowledge of the consequences? Here I stand, a man broken and pale, in the sun of the unbiased day. I feel eyes upon me, friends and enemies and something else. I detect no hatred from the odd man, Tenzo, who must have been Kakashi's partner. He watches with anticipation—he wants to help his comrade, his village-mate. The barrier is the only thing that stops him._

_ It is a natural thing for humans to help one another, isn't it? Is that why I felt such a cumbersome weight in my skin when I fled that hell-on-earth and abandoned the others? I was not the first to be changed, nor the last, but when my penchant for magnetism so appropriately manifested as a gift through this accursed mark upon my chest, I felt the pull of steel in every direction. It was a prison made entirely of solid metal; perhaps it was a fluke, perhaps a test, but my body was drawn to such forces and instantly used them to its advantage. I had told Kakashi that Susumu Hyuga was killed and reborn on an operating table, but I think it is more appropriate to say that he was killed by his own thoughts. I squashed him down, forced him to abandon his own loyalties to friends, family, and village alike. He became a lonely, bitter man at the age of fourteen. What did Susumu Hyuga do that was so wrong; why did he deserve to be betrayed from inside his own head? I should know the answer to that question, the traitor himself, but I do not—as I remember ripping the prison to shreds in my bid for escape, tossing steel spikes and slabs every which way to avoid recapture, I heard their pleas: "Susumu! Susumu come back for us!" They were desperate; I was their hope. I could have rescued them all. Seshu, Goda, Cassy...Even the unnamed fool who took upon himself the title of 'Mamban'; I could have spared him from his gruesome fate. _

_ I could have done so many things differently. Should I have trusted my people? No; I could not have done that. They would have betrayed me—as it is human nature to wish for life, it is also our nature to seek more power. I would have been usurped—but perhaps it was unavoidable, after all. I could now call him 'Kaine Hamasaki the Vile Usurper'. He claims that he wants to slay me before all of my own people, but he __**has**__ changed, and I can __**see**__ that change. He is a young man who has killed many. His chain is heavy, and he no longer wants to add weight to it. Something must have happened; something painful. His eyes have been cleansed of the immeasurable killing intent that was once his hallmark. Now I see something that I once saw in my own stare. Kaine is a man who desires mercy. He wants to defeat me, and then he aims to unintentionally humiliate me by sparing my life and offering forgiveness._

_ I will not accept for forgiveness; I do not deserve it. I will not expect to survive; I am a man who no longer deserves to draw breath. I once told myself that I had done everything I could have done for my village; everything I did with my gift of life was done in order to protect the children and adults alike from the horrors of this world that we were so unfortunately born into. It started so simply—I found myself alone, and as all humans desire to be loved and appreciated, I found small hearts that I could protect. Children, weaklings, fools; I gathered them up and brought them to this place—the prison. It had been abandoned after I laid waste to it, its human contents moved to some other hole in the world which swallowed the souls of the innocent and guilty alike. Was it possible for there to be more than one Hell? Was every room, every nation which had ever been host to Orochimaru's presence, its own layer of the realm of eternal damnation? _

_ It felt that way. I blamed the Leaf for abandoning us, and Danzo for bringing that monster to our doorstep. The bitterness remained strong all through it. No person should be forced to hear the agonized screaming of children as they die in a cold, strange place. Selfishly, I removed myself from the torture, but I doomed so many others to endure it with no means of escaping. I do not know what happened to Mamban, Goda, Seshu, Cassy, Sava, or any of the others after I fled. Presumably, they were punished harshly by proxy and the security was heightened. By some miracle, a few of them survived to become playthings of Danzo Shimura; perhaps his intention was always to be given new soldiers. _

_ When did I forgive myself for my cowardice? In truth, I never did. I claimed to have washed myself of the past; Susumu Hyuga was the sniveling adolescent who left his friends to die horrible deaths at the hands of soulless strangers. Minoru was strong; Minoru could protect everybody. Minoru could produce a barrier that stopped the world from seeping through the cracks and infecting paradise. Long before those noble volunteers were sapped of their chakra, the world had seeped in—in fact, the very man who created the barrier was the progenitor of the cruel world's grip. I poisoned them; I did it without remorse. How had I become so callous? Again, I have no answer. I am faced with every mistake I have ever made and can only shrug my shoulders and blame somebody else. I am a failure to myself and all who have ever depended on me. My hopes and dreams were a distraction; I pointed my rage and vengeful notions toward the Leaf as a whole. I dragged Kakashi's name into the darkness with me as a way of assuaging my own scruples. I was a monster, but surely the friend-slayer was such a monster that even __**I**__ could be admired by comparison. _

_ And yet here I am again; my mind continues to be drawn to the present even as I hope to forget it all. My barrier is shattered; my people are wide-eyed at the spectacle of violence, violence that should force them to turn their eyes away in disgust. On the contrary, they want to see one of us dead; my poison has ensured that Kaine is the one who has earned the disdain of the observers. It's unfair to him; he fights for a righteous cause. We are opposites yet so alike. I know that I value peace, but I keep myself distant from idealism. My brave, stupid child has allowed an ethereal fantasy called 'The Will of Fire' to seep in through his skin. It drives him to act brazenly. I admire his idiocy and the boldness it grants. I allowed him to remain in enemy hands because I was too frightened to face Kakashi; it was my fault, ultimately, that he was driven away and took some of my flock along with him. Perhaps if I had his gusto, I could have charged that village and ripped him out of the clutches of the Leaf and prevented this mess._

_ No, it could not have been prevented. Mamban conspired against me, and even know I can sense the venom of his thoughts. His mask might hide his ugliness from the innocent, but I have seen his face, both inside and out. He is the monster; he idolizes the methods of Orochimaru and has no remorse for enslaving and murdering countless men, women, and children. Kakashi has proven himself to be something other than a monster. He has become Kaine's idol; I can feel the reverence in the naïve child's voice whenever the name is whispered. So quickly his loyalties turned. I wonder as I stand before him if he even recalls the good things I have done for him and his sister. They were dried up and nearly dead, both of them; I offered them water, food, shelter, self-reliance, and above all, I gave them a purpose. 'Strive for peace,' I told them. 'But how?' they had asked. 'Follow my will; I am Minoru, and I have been blessed with the gift of truth.' _

_ I was believed so readily. To be such a god to desperate people was quickly intoxicating. What began as my honest effort to maintain a peaceful place, a shelter from pain and war, became an exercise in the inevitable. I felt the draw of having followers; the unrivaled ecstasy of being obeyed without question. My noble goal had become corrupt and perverted by the end of the first month. Akemi is the only one from that first month who survived to the next year. My fantasy was shattered; I could not protect them, not from everything. I __**could**__, however, shape them into soldiers...turn them into instruments of my own will that could bloody their hands while leaving mine clean. _

_ I don't like the feeling of killing a person. I ended many lives during the Third Shinobi World War; I followed orders as a good soldier and knew the difference between murder and killing. Killing was easy. The mentality was 'us or them.' A murder was more involved, more personal—not just 'us or them' but '__**me**__, not __**you**__.' Killing in a war was little more than murder on a grand scale, but the impersonal nature of it all felt comforting. It was the entity of the Leaf killing the entity of the Mist, not Susumu Hyuga killing Kaine Hamasaki. _

_ As it became the Village Hidden by Truth, I saw need to test those who entered. I could not suffer weakness, for despite my bombastic reassurances, the supplies were always going to run out. I had hoped to trim the fat, to keep the unworthy from entering the borders, but Akemi and Kaine were too eager to bring new faces into our cause. They saw it as something just and thriving; they did not know their own world for the sham that it was. I hadn't the heart to tell them the truth of things. I hid behind the lies by adopting the persona of honesty and benevolence. I convinced them all that my power was divine. In some sense, the Byakugan is a divine thing, a holy eye to be protected and cherished by all who are born into its possession. _

_ My time for thought is running short. Kaine is anticipating my next move; the kunai can only spin threateningly for so long before they are expected to act—and despite his lingering fears, he has become strong. Strong enough to fight me, perhaps even to defeat me, physically. With my gift of magnetism, however, he will be unable to deal a final blow. I cannot be felled by a punch across the jaw like so many others. I will not stop fighting until a long, sharp blade has pinned me to the ground. Kaine Hamasaki does not have the tools to stand up to me._

_ Despite that, I am moved to admire his tenacity. "Prepare yourself," I say to him, giving him that final courtesy before I shoot to kill._

* * *

"Prepare yourself," Susumu said through weary breath. The kunai dangling above his head were then fired as if from a long-barreled rifle, though minus the crack of exploding black powder. The air is sliced with suddenness, and the blades are propelled by their master to aim one at a time for Kaine's body.

Kaine was prepared, though; Kakashi had given him a detailed rundown of exactly what Magnet Style could do—in some users, like previous Kazekages, it gave full control of numerous metals and earthen substances at almost unlimited range. Susumu's was far more limited—he evidently lacked the earthen component of his own forced kekkei genkai, leaving him at control of metals at a far more limited range. As pointed kunai fired forth, Kaine charged with his head down low. One zipped over his head, the sound of a tiny sonic boom snapping past his senses. The pop should have been deafening, but his recently-discovered mastery of his own awareness had prevented him from losing concentration.

His hand was still upon the hilt of his sword, protected beneath a thick sheathe molded out of stone. Solid, but easy to crack. The blade needed to be shielded until it was used. It was not a typical sword, but neither was Susumu a typical opponent. With his curse mark activated and his magnetism in full swing, Kaine could only hope to deal a single, fully-decisive blow before he ran out of chances. He could feel fatigue setting in; his strength was phenomenal in his controlled rage, but it was taxing him to move at such heights. It needed to end with that last exchange, and as Susumu sent his last kunai to have it miss by the breadth of half-a-hair, Kaine let out a furious howl of rage. As he seemed to lose himself as an animal, the sound penetrating the small barrier that contained him, the crowd reeled back in unison—all but Seshu, Cassy, Akemi, Rika, and Tenzo, that was. Even Medo was shocked by the primal emotion thrown forth in that last charge.

Susumu realized with widening eyes that his kunai had been dodged. Lifting a hand, charging it with chakra, he sought to intercept the steel of Kaine's sword as it was audibly drawn from its customized sheathe. With his own howl of defiant exertion, Susumu forced his curse mark to spread further; it was a necessity. He could not grasp the sword at the speed it was being swung with. No, it wasn't the speed—it was the sword itself.

As Kaine rammed his head into Susumu's, knocking him backward, he followed up with a hefty thrust of a sharp, densely forged, and sturdy blade. The tip found a place between the right side of Susumu's ribs, digging harshly into thick skin, driven by Kaine's mighty rage to finally piece the vest and the hardened muscle and sinew beneath. Cords were snapped and nerves severed from their connections, but the wound would prove to be nonfatal—the lungs were avoided, as was the esophagus. It was mercy, then.

As Susumu felt the sky slide into his frontal vision, his Byakugan turned off, the veins receding into the depths of his face while leaving behind stretched scars of overuse. It had been so very long since he allowed his vision to falter, so long since he had felt the kind of pain that forced him to devote his concentration to staying conscious rather than to seeing everything around himself. It had been a long time coming, but Susumu Hyuga suddenly felt truly blind, despite seeing clearly in front of himself. The village was gone from his sight; his people could be heard, but not seen. Kaine had driven the blade cleanly through his former master's chest and out his back to emerge covered in black, syrupy blood which leaked onto the dirty ground.

Still, the disgraced Hyuga fought to move, fought to finally use his magnetism to force the sword out of his chest. It was no use; not only was Kaine still there, holding it deep inside and shoving it further to dig its way into the dense ground beneath...but the blade was not metal at all. With a turn of his head, Susumu looked down at the sharp, dull-seeming shaft of the weapon, bringing a weak, trembling hand upward to feel its blood-drawing surface.

"W-wood?" the impaled, bleeding man stammered. "How is this possible...?" He fell backward, his whole self pinned to the ground beneath his cocky, hopeless student. Though it was impossible to admit, he had been defeated in broad daylight using his own body and all of his tricks. "You were never meant to be this strong...you should always have...looked up to me; always been a tool of mine. Whose tool are you, now... Kaine Hamasaki?" He struggled to breathe, his lungs unharmed by design yet clamped down by the weight of Kaine's knee upon his upper gut. He was held down by legs and arms, all of them belonging to his student. He couldn't move anymore.

"You're right about something, Susumu..." Kaine said, panting harshly and sweating down his brow and neck. It took all of his effort, all of his stored energy, but he was able to push his body to the point of being just barely fast enough to come out on top. It all depended on the element of surprise; the sword was always the key to his ultimate victory. "Alone, I'm not strong enough to take you down. Never could have been...but even though I fought by myself, I was not doing it alone. It was Kakashi who taught me about your eyes and what they could do; it was Tenzo who fashioned this hardy wooden blade, meant for use against you at just the right moment. It was Makoto who gave me the focus to hone my anger into something sharp and definite...and it was you, Susumu, who gave me the chance to defeat you. You healed me before the fight began; you showed me compassion...you proved to me that you're not the monster I thought you were."

"For your own sake," started Susumu, coughing a dry heave out of his heavy chest. "Don't be so naïve, Kaine...I am the worst of the monsters. I would have killed you; I thought of skinning your corpse and turning your flesh into our village's next meal..." He was trying to be a menace, but even he no longer believed his words. He could have defeated Kaine. Even with the surprise of the sword's composition, there was a window of opportunity he could have exploited. His Byakugan saw the angle, he knew there was a position along the edge of Kaine's wrist that was a weak point—a tap with a chakra-charged fingertip would have been enough to destroy his grip upon the weapon and turn him into an open target. It was an act. Susumu had thought that it was Kaine who became softer through the ordeal, but he felt the openings in his heart and wanted them to be refilled. The yearning only struck him when he saw his student, felt pride in what he had become—he saw Akemi, too, and Rika on her arm and whispering so kindly into her ear. They were wearing headbands of the Leaf, all of them, and yet despite the symbol being a representation of everything that they were supposed to hate, they appeared so happy without even realizing it.

Susumu had been happy, once. He wanted to be happy again. He wanted to relinquish the responsibility of the Truth Village and return to being a seven year old kid just barely graduated from the Ninja Academy. For but one day, he wanted to cut loose the weight of his chains and laugh beside his family again. It was too late for him to return to the Leaf—he could not have been redeemed, despite Kakashi or Kaine's best efforts, but he wanted to lose. It was an honest defeat, but not because of physical incapability...he was defeated because his will faltered. He chose to accept the blade into his chest, chose to take penance for all his actions. He had hoped to die, but he was not granted his wish, as predicted. The thing that he had endured for so many years could not have been called 'life,' but as he stared into the sun rising past the point of noon, he wondered if it was indeed too late to find a third and final chance to have peace within the realm of the living.

"I'm sorry, Kaine Hamasaki..." he whispered, turning his head to the side and peering toward Akemi as well. He weakly raised a hand, and Kaine allowed him to do it. The victor of the battle could feel the resignation from his former master. "And I am so sorry to you, as well, Akemi...my darling little Akemi, my daughter and inspiration..." he reached for her, but she was far beyond him, on the other side of his impenetrable barrier. It stayed strong despite his defeat; it was given enough power to endure for a much longer time than had already passed. Perhaps ironically, he lacked the strength to lower the wall. Susumu was not dying, but he felt a crippling regret running through him that formed into beads of salty remorse around his blessed eyes. A pair of tears fell down his turned face, running across his cheek and over his dirty ear. "I failed you all."

"Yeah, you did," Kaine said firmly, not sugarcoating it one bit. "I wanted to kill you for _years_, you know? I thought about it every night...'this is the night I finally step past that line and overthrow him. This place is going to be mine to run.' I only ever had two dreams...either I'd be wandering alone and starving, or I'd be treated like a king with your beaten corpse at my feet." Kaine clutched his fists tightly, releasing the wooden sword and standing up from his vanquished bogeyman. "But now that I'm here, and I could kill you however I want...I realize that I care about you, Master Minoru, or Susumu, or whatever you want to call yourself now. You've done terrible things; we've all done things that make us monsters, but Makoto taught me one other thing..."

Susumu looked up with that same sense of swelling pride. The arrogant, unwieldy brat who came and went as he pleased with or without the influence of his poison had somehow grown into a man with principles and a solid direction. He no longer cared who was responsible for the shift, only that there was something to respect in there. "What's the one other thing?" Susumu asked, a smile building on his face as his deactivated eyes were lazily watching the clouds high above through the thin film of his barrier.

"We're always going to be ourselves, no matter what mistakes we make and try to take back. Nothing changes the past, but we can change the future every day we make a choice. I've made my choice, Susumu...I don't want to kill you; I want to help you find yourself again, like I was helped. I broke a helpless man's neck a while back; I had him beaten and broken, backed against a tree. He couldn't even summon up enough strength to try to stop me. I didn't have to do it, but I was having a bad day...I snapped him like a twig and never felt a drop of guilt." Kaine made a demonstrating motion with his arms, pulling them apart with a snap. "Easy. It was like turning a doorknob. I didn't realize how cold I had gotten until I had Akemi in the same grip...It was another bad day; my training was going poorly and I had thought she was trying to hurt Makoto...The only thing that stopped me from murdering my sister for no good reason was a knife to my shoulder. I'm going to have to live with that memory forever; I can't take it back. I don't have to dwell on it, though. She forgave me, or at least I think she did..." Kaine glanced to Akemi; the whole crowd had been silent since Susumu's stunning defeat. Even Cassy and Seshu had nothing wry to say.

"So now, Susumu Hyuga, my master and friend...I want to offer you my forgiveness for the things you've done." He reached his hand down to grab the hilt of his wooden sword, tugging it out of the wet, suctioned slot in the fallen's chest. It dripped with blood, black and toxic with the influence of the curse mark upon his flesh.

As Susumu was freed from the pinning blade, he shut his eyes and focused on healing himself—his curse mark was spreading further, but he forced it to recede. He had been sparing enough with its use to still have some measure of control over its advance. There was always a part of him with too much pride, and it stopped him from abusing his unnatural powers. "Your forgiveness is wasted on a man like me. No...instead, save it for Medo, for Sammy, for Azra, for Kumi...they have all done terrible things under my command, and they will certainly feel remorse when the effects of my toxin are lifted. They will need your guidance, and Akemi's...I want the two of you to continue on in my stead. Lead these people to happiness of a genuine sort...and not something like the ruse I invented. I want that, now—true joy. I didn't know that I wanted it until I saw the two of them so happy together..." he gave another point toward Akemi and Rika, huddled together in silence and soaking in the moment. "It's real. I could see their hearts fluttering together in perfect unity while we fought. They wanted you to win, and they wanted it _together._ I had spent so much time seeking an angle, some method to abuse my eye's power, that I had forgotten its simple beauty...I can see inside of people; I can know their souls by observing them in action..."

Kaine was starting to smile; that man who was speaking so openly was the kind of man that he had wanted Minoru to be; perhaps it wasn't all an act, in the end. Minoru's public face was maybe a true facet of his personality, simply denied its true freedom by the twisted machinations brought upon him by the horrors of his past. "Those don't sound like the words of a monster, to me," Kaine hummed, seeming satisfied. "You've committed awful sins, but there's no need for you to die..."

A voice rang out from the side of the ring, a single slender finger lifted and wagging from left to right. "That's not exactly true, pup," Cassy said, smirking with her gifted cruelty. "The rules at the start said that surrender wasn't an option; one of you's gotta die or it doesn't count...and if it doesn't count, I'll just have to kill the both of you."

Another voice sounded up from the crowd, this time belonging to Tenzo. "Just try it; we're not going to sit by and watch you butcher a pair of exhausted men..." Akemi and Rika stood at his side, letting him take the lead. Medo stood as well; hearing Susumu's words hadn't exactly been easy, but the poison within his system worked both ways—as Minoru ordered something to be obeyed, it was deeply ingrained. When he made admittance of his own faults, it was also rather nicely acknowledged by the genjutsu.

"Like it or not," Medo began, crossing his arms over his barrel chest. He had been rather handily dismissed by Cassy before the battle began, but he felt emboldened by his master's words and the backup of Tenzo and his former village-mates. "Minoru's will has been made clear—Kaine's going to be our new leader, and Akemi's going to be his equal."

Rika gave a whooping cheer, pouncing on Akemi from the side as if she hadn't been paying attention to Susumu until somebody else repeated his intentions. "Alright! I get to kiss my new leader first!" She puckered her lips and touched them to Akemi's mouth, proud of her lover and sensei without fully knowing why it happened the way it did. She had been watching the battle, of course, but there didn't exist a world where Kaine could have lost—she knew the future without knowing how. It was just an unshakeable faith in the people she trusted that so happened to be proven worthy.

Akemi accepted the kiss and gave Rika a rub down the side of her waist, but she pulled back from the connection to voice a protest. "That's all well and good, but...we still have an issue with what's surrounding us..." she began, and her fears were realized when somebody hopped down on the other side of the barrier, the sole standing person apart from the major crowd.

"Oh, how right she is...see, now Susumu is weak. His eyes are worn and useless until he can take a nap," Mamban began with a sickeningly smooth giggle, tilting his head and forming a mock pillow with both hands against the cheek of his mask. "For now, he'll be of no help...and the Hamasaki boy is ill-suited to challenge us, either."

Tenzo brought his hands together for a quick seal, wood sprouting from the ground on the other side of the barrier in an attempt to grab at Mamban's feet. His target was sprightly, hopping up and back to escape the encroaching tendrils of wood until he was primed to splash the oncoming branches and planks with acid. The moist lumber was slow to melt, but it did lose its composition as it withered and died beneath the poisonous coating. "So eager, but please let me finish," Mamban continued, landing his feet atop a twisted construct of Tenzo's gray, decrepit wood. "This village and all of its people are not free yet. No, not free at all...Susumu's heart may have changed, but his heart is what I'm after..."

The red-masked figured hopped down off his perch. A few finicky young souls from the Truth Village's 'elite ranks' sprung into action in an attempt to flank Mamban around the sides of the barrier. He didn't flinch as they got closer; four of them attacked, thrusting kunai and swords in tandem with one another. It was a well executed blitz attack, but they were made useless as Mamban spread his arms out and allowed the weapons to connect with him. Rather than sink into his flesh, they were instead eaten away with alarming haste, silvery metal blades turning into grayish-black goop that fell to the ground and dissolved into the earth.

The then-disarmed attackers were disheartened, seeking to escape. Mamban thrashed his acidic left arm around again, aiming to splash the four bodies and dispose of them for good, but Tenzo was hasty enough to reach arms of wood around the barrier and snag the four of them around the waist and yank them back. The acid missed its target and Mamban shrugged; some of the corrosive liquid had landed upon the surface of Susumu's barrier. It bubbled and steamed, but the milky white chakra held firm against the dissolving essence.

"Try not to be so hasty," Tenzo said to the four who he had safely escorted back to the 'good' side of the field. To his left, Seshu and Cassy stood without making any attacks of their own. So long as they were docile, the villagers were giving them some breathing space—it was for the best, Tenzo figured, since any of the inexperienced bunch would have been quickly eliminated by either of the two. He felt outmatched, despite having garnered the apparent support of the full complement of Truth Villagers. "Mamban's a monster; I don't think I can handle him myself. Kakashi needs to get here soon...I don't even know where he's been all this time, but he's missed so much..."

Ignoring Tenzo's interference, Mamban returned to his planned task. He raised his bandaged right arm, reaching his left's fingers up to unravel the bindings. One by one, strips of off-white fabric were discarded in shreds to drift away in the wind or burn up against the barrier in front of him. "It's an impressive barrier as always, Susumu," Mamban said coldly through his mask. Kaine and Susumu could see him from within, but were in no condition to rise to stop him—even presuming that the barrier would allow them to escape.

"Now, since the two of you are nice and crippled...I'd like you to sit still while I test out a new trick I've learned..." Mamban's right arm was fully exposed, slightly tanned and unblemished unlike the rest of his body's flesh. It was the arm of Goda, and upon its uncovered shoulder there was a curse mark that began to spread along its muscles.

* * *

"Thanks for this," Kakashi said gratefully to the man whom he was traveling with. His detour had become a full trek to a remote location along the edges of the Land of Fire's border with the Land of Rivers. It was a sizable journey, but one whose return trip was much faster as his new traveling companion had insisted on having another 'contest.' Earning the man's assistance required exact guidance; he wasn't renowned for his sense of direction. "I know it's not easy to leave your team in the middle of a mission, but this matter is as urgent as they come and you're the closest one I could turn to."

The other shinobi laughed raucously, tossing his head back with black hair rising in the wind. "Haha! My hand-picked team is made up of the most talented ninjas this world will ever see! They've all been personally trained by _yours truly!_" He pointed a thumb at his chest. "Besides, Kakashi...you didn't think I'd pass up a chance to fight alongside my _eternal rival, _did you?"

Kakashi doubled his effort, speeding his movements to match the intensity of his new reinforcement. "I'm glad you're so enthusiastic about it, but we have a lot more ground to cover...so let's pick up the pace even further!"

"_Right!_"

* * *

**Phew! All done for now. I'll be posting another chapter soon; the story is in its last leg, now, and I've got no intention of slowing down! Let me know what you thought by leaving a review! Thanks for all of the support you've all given me so far.**


	36. In the Wake of Devastation

**Enjoy!**

* * *

All eyes were upon Mamban, and he finally felt like the star of the show. With his body doused in a black robe and his stature framed by the decayed, graying wood of Tenzo's attempt to surprise him, he properly felt like he was taking a bow upon a stage. His right arm was newly revealed and still fresh, its skin intact but blackening as its own curse mark began to spread. The risky operation had been a success; Goda's limb was now attached to Mamban from the shoulder joint downward. "Now then...this barrier of yours has always kept the bad guys out, hasn't it...?" Mamban began, slithering his tongue around behind his mask as he spoke. The wet sound of insanity echoed through the village. After the first four had tried to attack, the rest of the amateurish Truth Village fighters backed down.

From inside the small barrier, Susumu looked toward his old friend. The vanquished leader—ex-leader, but his own decree—was looking on helplessly toward the red mask that represented the chaos of the outside world. He had thought it would be the Leaf that rose against him, that it would have been the coming intruders like Kakashi that were his enemies...but it was not so. "Mamban...you would do this _now?_" he strained to say, his chest wound still gaping and losing blood after Kaine withdrew the impaling blade. Susumu was working hard to heal himself, but an open wound was so much more taxing than a bruise or sprain; it closed, but closed slowly and left a bloody hole behind in his blue vest, allowing it to match Kaine's purplish tint a bit better with the saturation of crimson fluid.

Mamban took his left hand and slashed it at the barrier a second time, coating it with a thick, dribbling layer of his deep green acid. Again, it sizzled as if it were landing on hot coals, but the barrier bubbled it away uselessly. "Is there a better time than the present to do _anything_, Susumu my old friend? Your barrier has always intrigued me...I wonder, how has it been so powerful all this time? It was a talent of yours that I envied...but there are other powers that I envied more greatly. How lucky Goda had been to obtain this explosive punch, for example, but as it was always intended to become, it is _mine_ now..." Mamban reeled his right arm back, flexing its stolen muscles and tendons and straining his breath.

"Shouldn't we stop him!?" Rika looked to Tenzo in a panic, expecting him to have the answer.

Akemi did the same; they were both heeding to the older man's decision, but he was overcome by the choices he _could_ _have_ made. Tenzo exhaled roughly and heaved a growl of impotent but temporary surrender. "We can't get to him from here...the barrier is too strong, too wide, and too transparent. He'll see us coming before we can put our hands on him. Besides," he recalled, looking to the ruins of his previous attempt; the tips of some leftover branches were crumbling into dust at their enemy's back. "He's not going to be taken easily." Tenzo considered a larger scale earth technique; it was well within his scope to open enormous fissures and produce small mountains with a clap of his hands, but such techniques were no good in such a precarious situation. There were too many people in the village, let alone the two who were trapped inside Susumu's barrier.

Medo was looking to Tenzo with a confusion that bothered him under the cozy blankets of his worldview. Susumu had said something about poison; about having _guilt_ when it wore off. He couldn't imagine why he would feel guilty, but there was something even deeper tugging at his thoughts. He wasn't just picturing a way to save Susumu or Kaine, as was his duty as part of the village. The unspoken hesitation was making it tough to breathe. "What's he going to do? If we can't get to him because of the barrier, he can't get past it to hurt us, either, right?" Medo asked from the side. Whatever it was that weighed on him, he turned to the one with the calmest head to try to dispel his worries.

"I don't know...he seems like he's going to try to come _through_ it..." Tenzo squinted; it was tough to see through the cloudy haze of the energy construct that kept him from engaging his enemy, but the faintest details of a curse mark were present on a bare shoulder. Mamban's words had been cryptic at first, but as time ticked by, they began to lock into their intended focus. With a falling jaw and widening eyes, Tenzo looked to Akemi. "Help me protect them!" Then he looked to the rest, calling out more broadly. _**"Everybody down!"**_

Susumu gave a plea for sanity, but it went unheard. His pragmatic, merciless friend no longer existed—perhaps of all the survivors from his youth, Mamban was the only one who had truly become something else, something that was inarguable and irredeemable. The fallen Hyuga reached out a strong hand, but he could not clutch the chaotic being's sanity. "_**Mamban, no! Stop!" **_

Just as the panicked, uncertain masses heeded Tenzo's frenzied warning to duck down, Mamban's drawn arm was shoved forward in spite of Susumu's desperate words. Energy was collected along Mamban's knuckles, refined to a thickness less than a fly's wing and fully condensed. The strength of a city-shaking explosion was packed into the head of a thumbtack and forced into the edge of the barrier, riding on the tip of Mamban's repurposed limb. His whole body rotated along his heels and hips, turning every muscle into a jackhammer and giving the ultimate impact of his strike the power it needed in order to oppose Susumu's unbreakable barrier. With a howl of delight, Mamban felt the energy prism resist his initial contact, scorching the short hairs along Goda's old fingers...and then the gathered power exploded forward off the end of his fist, blasting the smokey wall with a deafening kaboom.

The sound of cracking glass reached the ears before distorted rings of force began to flow through the sturdy barrier. Within the span of a half-second, the gyrating body of the cubed prison was turned to an oval, then a triangle, then a smoothed cone, then it snapped back into a rectangular shape and its temporary elasticity was turned into a splintering fracture. The notoriously powerful barrier began to shatter apart, its restrained chakra being released into a devastating explosion; it was like cracking a dam that had been holding back the weight of all the world's oceans.

A gargantuan wave of concussive force was propelled from the ruined barrier. From the outside looking in, the distortion in the air was visible as an expanding dome. Following the monumental impact, flinging cacophonously in all outward directions, there was an instant coverage of dust, wind, leaves, and even uprooted trees. Visibility was zero. A howling tornado took shape above the training field and all the gathered debris was launched into the air in the shape of a volcanic eruption before dispersing outward and rising into the air.

Even the clouds were scared away by the unspeakable fury of the winds. A pristine and clear blue sky was the result for miles around, but the Truth Village itself was blanketed by fog and dirt, leafy flakes turning around carelessly as they fell to settle on the ground. At sea level, the cataclysm was thorough. Dust was kicked a thousand feet high, blocking all vision from the outside in, or the inside out. After the earth-shaking calamity passed, there was a conspicuous silence. The only noise to be heard was the pitter patter of dirty chunks falling back to the earth after their skyward journey. The distant splash of full-sized trees colliding with dirty ocean water reached the shores after several seconds.

At the epicenter of the destruction, Mamban stood firm with his right arm outstretched and its fingers intact. He was panting massively, so much energy exerted that he had lost his own thoughts to the ecstasy of activity. The air began to clear around him, and he gave casual glances left and right and forward; there was no sign of the barrier or much of anything else. The shield's whole self had been dismantled and dispersed; the ground that it had sunk into was upturned and fresh, looking richly brown and full of worms that were now dead. Further, the air became minutely clearer, and the white glisten of ice was visible across the way. Seshu had erected a layer of frozen fortitude to protect himself and Cassy, just as expected, and it held firm—Mamban wouldn't have knowingly risked their lives, even with how insane his 'test' had turned out to be.

Mamban's pleasure was so monumental that he was trembling from ankle to fingertip, his mask the only piece of himself that wasn't moving. He had bested Susumu's barrier with his own raw power; it was the achievement that would define the rest of his existence. He didn't care how long it took, how many bones he left behind when he finally wasted away—he was ready to go to hell with that single gold star pasted onto his record. As the brown torrent in the air began to thin and resettle, the absolute cratering of the area was revealed. Much of the Truth Village had been annihilated by the single thrust of its greatest enemy's fist.

Much to the destroyer's dismay, however, the brown tint in the air had been hiding the disappointing details across the field—there were thick domes of wood and earth erected around where the crowd had been ducking. Tenzo and Akemi had been fast enough to avert a total massacre, but they had not saved everyone—a few bodies were seen impaled over tree branches or bent awkwardly between fallen buildings. Most were in black robes, Mamban's expendable soldiers, but a few were in plain vests as part of the Truth's military.

* * *

Tenzo was sprawled out on all fours, arms spread as far as they could reach and slammed deep into the dirt; though the ground had been fully shaken and upheaved, his wooden domes were rooted far into the earth until they found bedrock and had taken aggressive root within. In front, he could only see the damp interior of the half-sphere, and behind him there was a conical streak of unblemished ground. He had made the largest defense he could summon up, encompassing all of the villagers that were beside him. Once the noise had settled, he tentatively lowered the individual strips of heavy lumber that kneaded together to form the thick blockade. He coughed as dust found its way into his lungs, but he didn't let the fit distract his attention—his eyes stung in the particle-dense atmosphere, but he kept them open. He re-adjusted the orientation of his faceplate, pulling his chin-cover up a bit further to keep his skin protected from minor annoyances.

"Akemi! Rika!" Tenzo called for them both; he had lost sight of them when the barrier broke, but he had seen them run off to cover where his wood couldn't reach just before the impact hit. No doubt they were heading off to try to save the ones who had been out of his rach. He saw the carnage over his shoulder, trees decorated with a few corpses like a string of cheap, faulty holiday lights. He clenched his teeth and fists, getting rid of his shellshock with tight shakes of his head and focusing on the sounds that were coming into equilibrium around him. He hadn't even heard himself speak, but as the ringing subsided he could hear the rustling of survivors around him. Even though he had shielded many with his dome, they were seemingly still knocked unconscious by the flurry of sound and the vacuum of air pressure that formed behind them as wind surged through.

* * *

"Tenzo!" Akemi yelled out, her hand clutching Rika's and leading her through the warped terrain. "Are you alright!? Is _Kaine_ alright!?" she plead for an answer but only received silence. She had erected a thick wall of earth to protect the other half of the crowd, the half that Tenzo wasn't able to conceal. He had asked for her help, and she gave it, but it cost her a lot of chakra to provide enough coverage, and on top of that her walls were not as durable as Tenzo's wood. Though she deflected the worst of the blast, her earth eventually crumbled and she was sent back with Rika in her arms to smack into a tree. She didn't know where she was, anymore—she looked around, but the village was hardly a village at all. Remnants of homes and trees were all she could make out.

It was all too familiar. War had come for her again, but that time she thought she was ready. As she unwillingly drank up the taste of death and fear, she fell down to her knees and clutched at the dirt. Rika was wobbly at her side, disoriented by the pain of being thrown away by the blast, and then she fell down as well, onto her back with her arms clutching her stomach. Rika's black curls had almost gone straight beneath the oppressive weight of the air, and its color was brought closer to brown as she was a surface for dirt to settle upon.

Though Rika didn't feel any pain, she felt a wetness at her stomach and raised her hand with squinted eyes to see what it was. Fresh red blood was lining her fingers, and she looked in shock to where the sticky warmth had come from. She screeched without meaning to, seeing a dark splotch on her brown used-to-be dress, feeling around for an opening in herself. She didn't find one; Akemi had protected her from the worst of it. Baffled, then, she looked up to spot a robed body dangling high over her head and dripping its freshly-spilled essence down upon her. She didn't like that very much, either, closing her eyes and whimpering.

Akemi was still coming to terms with what had happened. She heard Rika's screech but knew for sure that the other girl wasn't hurt—she knew it because _she _was the one who was hurt. There were a few sharp splinters jammed into her outer thigh and her lower back. They sank an inch or two into flesh, dangerous wounds if left unattended, but she wasn't willing to quit the fight and run away, even though every instinct she could still hear was trying to coerce her into doing just that. When she regained all her senses, her sight included, she blinked and rubbed her eyes to clear them of gunk and then wriggled her hands to shake the loose gravel out of her fingerless gloves.

"You're fine, Rika," Aki told the terrified girl in a daze, reaching her hand over to clutch Rika's shoulder and turn her out of the flow of blood—the rookie had been too frozen with fear and shock to do it herself. "You're fine; and you're _gonna_ be fine...remember what I promised." She ran fingers through her own hair, clearing it just as she cleared her gloves, then she secured her Leaf headband in place. The Village Hidden by Truth wasn't exactly her village any longer, officially, but it was her home for as long as she could remember and the last thing she wanted to see was its total devastation. She wanted to blame Tenzo, or Kakashi, or Kaine, or Minoru for the damage, but it was Mamban's actions alone. That much, at least, she knew for sure.

There was no avoiding the ultimate outcome. Their innocent little mission to capture Susumu and bring him back to the Leaf in a quick snatch-and-grab had gone up in smoke the very moment that Kaine did whatever dumb thing he had done to find himself locked in a barrier with Susumu Hyuga in a fight to the 'death.' She wondered morbidly if the fight had turned out to be a draw, thanks to Mamban's unscheduled interference. Would that make her the leader of the ruined village, per Susumu's final wishes? She didn't want that kind of responsibility. It was difficult enough to bear the weight of her promise. Feeling around her back, she began plucking out the slender splinters that were pinching between flesh and digging into muscle.

"You saved me, Aki," Rika acknowledge, coughing up a mouthful of dirt that she didn't know she had been chewing on. She beat her chest with a balled fist and fought to bring herself up to her feet again before falling back onto her rump instead. "What happened...where are we?"

"The village, Rika...it's gone. Right now, we're by the hospital, I think—I mean, we're where it _used_ to be," Akemi replied, shaking her head and clearing her traumatic memories. She was thinking of her old home and comparing it to the ruins it had become, but rather than think of the buildings and the death, she thought of Rika, the person who needed her in that living, breathing moment. "Let's get back to the field...Tenzo's probably still there with Mamban."

"R-right," Rika staggered, climbing up with the help of a dangling branch. Just as she got on her feet, the twig snapped off and crumbled away in her vice-grip. Her knuckles were white and she felt like she had been hit by a rolling boulder, but she otherwise felt fine. "Do you think Kaine's okay?"

Akemi didn't want to say what was on her mind—of course he wasn't okay—so she answered in a kind way that avoided the certainty she had in her cynical head. "He's Kaine Hamasaki; he survives _everything_."

* * *

Tenzo could see more clearly and finally had his bearings again. The hills that used to surround the training field were turned into a deep bowl with evenly graded slopes all around; the whole area that had been a flat plain was then a crater that dipped lower as it got closer to the epicenter. Akemi and Rika weren't responding, Medo was knocked out but breathing, and various other unrecognized faces were immobile. "Damn it!" Tenzo raged, hearing himself echo off of the gentle slopes. He knew that his indecision would cost them all, but he also knew that none of his quick plans would have been enough to stop the events from happening. He could have delayed them for precious seconds, perhaps, but the barrier was going to break. Tenzo freed himself from guilt, focusing instead on the present like a shinobi was often forced to do: "Is anybody still awake out here?" he surveyed in a firm voice.

"Just me," came the mocking abrasiveness of a man who was regrettably familiar. "You remember, right?" he followed up, stepping into vision through the foggy air. As layers continued to settle, more fell from higher in the sky.

"Seshu, wasn't it?" Tenzo gave the courtesy of a response, not knowing exactly how the other man had survived, but knowing already that his sparkling, icy hair had been part of the crowd. "How did you survive?"

"The short version of the story is that you can't kill ice," Seshu said with a cryptic smirk, looking off to his left where the majority of the blast had emerged from. "I guess I'm not surprised that you managed to stay alive after all that, but I've gotta admit that I'm impressed that you haven't even got a scratch on you."

"You haven't got any either, though, isn't that right?" Tenzo asked back, reaching to his hip and hoping he was distracting his unwanted conversation mate well enough. "You're a mystery, Seshu; why would a guy like you go rogue?"

Seshu shrugged, brushing off his shoulder. "Yeah, well, my ice is about as hard to crack as your wood," said the threatening man with the black streaks along his cheek that sank down past the neckline of his robe. "But you ask why I'd go rogue? What about me would lead you to think I _wouldn't_ go rogue, Kinoe?"

"You've got power that others will want...others like Mamban, in fact." Tenzo gave a glance over, seeing the outline of the cause of the decimation. The man in the small red mask was flexing his right hand, a limb that obviously did not belong to him, initially. Tenzo had seen the original right arm ripped away by Kakashi's eye power. "I'm surprised you've still got all your parts with a madman like him breathing down your neck...and what about the girl? Who are you two to him; what makes you so damned willing to lay your lives in the line for a maniac?"

Seshu shrugged, waving a hand over his shoulder as he turned to walk past Tenzo and get away from the sprinkling earth. "Come with me, and I'll tell you all about it...this place is feeling a bit gloomy all of a sudden, don't you think?"

Tenzo had little choice but to follow; he wouldn't allow himself to risk letting a dangerous guy like Seshu roam free in the low visibility. If he ever got out of sight, he would likely come back to strike at a rather inopportune moment. With Mamban seemingly lost on some whimsical train of thought, there was a breather between conflicts. "Are you looking to settle the score between us?" Tenzo asked, wanting to keep the other one talking.

"That's right. I owe you a pierced heart, at least." Seshu wasn't looking back, his hands closed together at the base of the rear of his neck and the sleeves of his arms draped down as if to meaningfully disrupt his vision. He was taunting his passenger into attacking; did he have something to prove? Whether it was a trap or not, Tenzo chose to spring it by fishing out the explosive tag that he had been thumbing since the white-headed menace showed himself. It was flung expertly, sailing through the air and catching aflame as it left Tenzo's skilled hand. He leaped back to create some distance between himself and the expected explosion, but it never came.

The tag had gotten close to Seshu and instantly frozen over, slowed to a stop and then falling to the dirt to collapse into a dozen equally-sized pieces. "Come on, you know that's not gonna work, right?" He sounded bored, actually, like he was just passing time. He turned to kneel over and pick up one piece of the tag, crunching it between his thumb and forefinger until it fell into even smaller bits of pure, clear ice. The paper had ceased to exist, turning into water as it melted against the hot dirt. "I'd expect a bit more creativity from you, Kinoe."

Tenzo had indeed known that it wouldn't work, but it was worth an attempt. He had plenty of bombs in his pouches, after all. "As long as we're being candid, I was hoping for your freezing aura to be down." He looked down to his hand, remembering the sensation of cold that had sunken into him during their previous encounter. He wasn't looking forward to feeling that again. "Where are we headed?"

Seshu shrugged again, moseying around in a broad circle, "I don't know yet, I'm not in any hurry to finish you off this time. I wanted you dead so I could move on to Kakashi, before, so I might've gotten hasty. Now that you're on my turf and there's nothing you can do to hurt me, I've got nothing but time. Go ahead, throw everything you've got at me; I can take it, I promise. Do your water trick again."

Tenzo narrowed his eyes suspiciously. He didn't like the sound of being encouraged to utilize his previous ace; the battle would have been Seshu's to win if not for the lucky side-effect of trapping himself in ice if he ever went for a swim. "If you're just going to lead me in circles, I should be getting back to Mamban...he's not the kind of man who should be left unattended, is he?" Tenzo turned to move away quickly, deciding that Seshu could wait after all. In a flash of movement, Tenzo blurred the world around himself with raw speed, wanting to create some distance—but Seshu wound up in front of his line of sight with an open, gloved palm ready to catch his face.

Tenzo stopped in an instant, one foot skidding through the fresh, moist soil as he tried to halt his momentum, taking a rolling dive backward to keep himself out of range of his enemy. "Not going to let me pass, then? That's a shame."

"Yeah, well...with Goda gone, Cassy wants me to make you and Kakashi into frozen sculptures so you can decorate his grave site." Seshu sighed like he had a regret. "I promised her I'd get it done, and you know how it is with women and promises: if I don't deliver, she's gonna eat my heart...and that might sound like an exaggeration, but Cassy's a special kind of thing. It's only fair either way; I do kind of owe my heart to her, since she's the one who sewed it back together after you ruined it."

"She's some kind of surgeon, then? I've never met her, only heard the story of how Kaine gave her a bit of singed hair." Tenzo put his hands together before he even finished talking, kneading his chakra into water and having it rise up at Seshu's feet from under the steaming earth; the heat of the explosion was slowly fading, but the water was still very nearly boiling after Tenzo forced his chakra through the earth to form an impromptu river. Seshu's feet were caught in the water, and Tenzo hadn't seen the enemy use his seal to undo the icy aura, so he had assumed it was a clean catch.

Seshu sighed with boredom again, feet deeply wading through the muddy water beneath him as he took a few casual steps closer to Tenzo. "Well, looks like I'm not going to fall for that one, this time. So, what's your plan? Going to surrender and make this easier on both of us, Kinoe?" Despite the water at his feet remaining hot and liquified, Seshu's fingers had ice forming around their tips when he reached across the gap between himself and Tenzo, taking advantage of the latter's surprise to get a grip on his vest collar.

Ice began to creep across the green flak jacket, and Tenzo acted quickly to grab a kunai from his hip pouch and slice into the material of the vest, severing it and tearing himself out of the freezing encasement. He took another hop backward, his feet balancing easily on the jagged terrain. He watched as his vest crumbled the same way as his explosive tag a moment before in Seshu's hand. Still, the water at the iceman's feet was unfrozen. Tenzo realized that he was at a disadvantage: _So he's figured out a way to control the range and focus of his freezing aura...that's not good for me. That curse mark is going to keep giving him chakra, and anything I throw at him is just going to be turned to ice. _

"You're awfully quiet," Seshu taunted, reaching his hand into the water at his feet and flexing his fingers around the liquid. A segment of the dirty moisture turned to ice but the surrounding area remained warm as he pulled out a new weapon, brown and mucky. He spun it around his neck and over his shoulders, getting used to the new tool's weight. "Want me to end it quick, or is it alright if I play around for a while?"

Tenzo hardened his expression, putting his hands together and producing a spear for himself. He certainly wasn't going to go down without a fight. "No matter what you decide, I'm not the one who's going down today." Tenzo skipped the theatrics, holding his weapon out with its sharpened point facing his frozen, pupil-less rival. "Really, you had no business getting back up in the first place...I'm surprised that you were brave enough to pick another fight with me so soon after how our last meeting ended."

"Without your water shenanigans, what have you got to show me, Kinoe? Your wood is full of water, so I can freeze it like nothing...you'd be better off using something made of steel...oh, but you didn't bring any steel, did you? I take it that you were afraid of Susumu's pitiful Magnet Release, so you left it at home, yeah?" Seshu took a swift testing jab at Tenzo with his weapon, but the tip of his icy pike was knocked away without much difficulty. "So, what'll it be? Am I gonna stab you in the heart as payback, or am I gonna freeze you without any holes so Cassy is more impre—"

As Seshu was gloating, Tenzo was acting—a huge tremor shook the crumpled earth and a massive slab of it rose on both sides of the intended victim. The slabs crammed together with mighty speed, faster than it could be frozen thanks to the lingering heat of the exploding barrier a few dozen yards from where they stood. Whatever Seshu had been saying, he didn't get to finish his thought, as the heavy earth—several tons of it on each side—sandwiched him snugly in place. "I think we'll play a bit of hide and seek," Tenzo said, weaving a single sign and bringing up fresh wood to tightly bind the earthen shell, clamping it down tightly. _It won't be enough to kill him, but it will buy me some time, _Tenzo thought as he weaved one more layer to the prison and turned on his heels to run with nimble footing, deciding not to head toward Mamban after all, instead finding a good place of uprooted earth to tuck himself away and hope for a chance to make a surprise attack against Seshu when he inevitably emerged in a rage. _I just need to generate enough heat to slow his freezing down..._

* * *

Susumu's eyes shot open, and he looked to his immediate right to find Kaine Hamasaki lying unconscious there beside him. They were both in the center of the blast, but the barrier's design was special—it was the same as the one that had initially been intended to protect the village itself, so inherent in its design was a failsafe that directed the energy outward rather than inward in the event of instability.

He hadn't expected Mamban to shatter its structure so conclusively, but as it happened, he dove onto Kaine to tip him over and keep his head down. It wasn't enough; the air pressure within the barrier was still sufficient to knock the wind out of somebody who didn't happen to have the fortitude of a curse mark. It may have been odd that the loser of their 'battle to the death' proved to be the first one to stand, but the Hyuga clutched his throbbing skull and felt blood running down his unprotected forehead when he tasted dusty air higher above the ground level.

"It's all gone," Susumu murmured to himself as he activated his Byakugan. His vision expanded from the base of his nose, swelling out in every direction to encompass the whole radius of his village. He could see the trees along its very outskirts, the trunks marked with the word 'truth' now standing as perhaps the only testament to the village's compromised existence. Most if not all of the homes and storehouses had been turned to rubble beneath the vortex of the eruption.

The obliteration wasn't only due to his barrier's destruction; the sheer enormity of Mamban's single punch amplified the recoil five fold and projected what could have been a minor burst into a full-blown village-breaker. If the two of them had chosen to work together again, it may have proven to be a potent combination attack against their enemies, but it would never be so. The man named Minoru would have certainly used the recent discovery to his advantage, but Minoru as a persona had vanished even more quickly than he had initially appeared. Susumu looked to his own grown-up body with mild disbelief. Flexing his own hands, seeing through his own eyes, he felt like he was waking up from a long nap. He had missed so many years, all spent wasting away in a dark metal chamber, wallowing in his losses and guilt.

"The village is gone, Mamban," Susumu mumbled, standing in a patch of largely-undisturbed earth at the new center of his ruined territory. His newly christened worst enemy was standing where he had been standing when the punch was delivered. "You've destroyed it all; you have ended lives and hopes, dispelled dreams and imprisoned ambitions," Susumu seethed, his canines showing ferociously when he scowled in Mamban's direction.

"Lighten up, Susumu; you've been doing the same thing for over a decade, I only did it _faster_!" Mamban replied with an easy giggle, childish as ever despite his enormous leap in power. "Oh, what a mess you made of things," the red mask unflinchingly spoke. "But it's alright; I've finally come to claim what should always have been _mine_."

Susumu was strong on his feet despite being rammed into the dirt and stabbed through the chest. His wounds were healing with the help of his cursed chakra and natural skill with the Yin element. His tissue repaired itself more quickly than average on its own, but when focused he could approach legitimate levels of standing regeneration. "You don't deserve to live, Mamban," the Hyuga pronounced openly, surrounded on all sides by appropriated soldiers wearing unified white masks and dark robes. "You and all of your puppets will ultimately die in the carcass of this village..."

Mamban chortled, rolling his shoulders back and turning the eye-slits of his mask toward the sky to enjoy the unnaturally clear blue. The clouds had retreated and seemingly refused to return, fearful of what might happen if they did. "You couldn't even defeat the Hamasaki boy, Susumu; I was certainly _expecting_ you to emerge with a victory...if I had laid down a bet on that match, I would have lost all my life's savings."

"And how do you measure those savings? Do you count the living souls you've enslaved, or the lifeless bodies you've left behind on your path?" Susumu challenged his counterpart, turning and raising his hands as if ready to pick a fresh fight using a worn body. He was breathing heavily but he stood himself between Mamban and Kaine, leaving his unconscious successor protected with his own ragged body. "Leave the survivors out of this...surely you'd rather take me, and only me."

Mamban clapped his hands, one gloved and one not, creating a leathery slap against living flesh. "Since when did you turn all selfless again, Susumu? This isn't the person you told me you had become...goodness, your heart is so fickle! It bounces left and right and up and down, diagonal and curved, you don't even know your own soul any longer!" Mamban flexed his right arm, its corded muscles pressing against elastic skin. "I, however, feel perfectly clear...I am my own soul, I am Goda's soul, I am the soul of Sava, of Lakio, of all the victims left behind by your cowardly escape...but do not worry, Susumu Hyuga the Despicable Traitor! I will obtain your soul and add it to my collection; we will be as one again, and you will have your chance to apologize to those whom you've wronged..."

Susumu shook his head violently to the side, his hair thrashing in the gentle breeze of the day. "You don't understand the evils you've committed, the mistakes you've made...we are both monsters in the dark, whispers on the wind, legends to be buried and forgotten. We are stories told to children; beasts of lore that will be erased as the young world grows into maturity. When peace becomes reality, we will have vanished forever. And so I ask you, Mamban...wouldn't you rather die in peace than dissolve in futile agony?"

"There's no such thing as a peaceful death for any of us anymore, Susumu. You've _personally_ made peace impossible...you've brought the Leaf here through your agent, Kaine Hamasaki! _He's_ the one to blame for _my_ presence here, as well...The marvelous Lord Danzo Shimura discovered that he was alive, subtly called him back to the Leaf, tried to suck him back into the folds of Root...but you were there to dispel the influence exerted upon the little jerk. It was that moment of lost control that sparked the lord's memory! Lord Danzo's genjutsu is no laughing matter; to have it removed from his pawns is a grievous sin and an impossible task...except for a user of sacred eyes! In time and with perhaps a bit of intel from me, he remembered the Hyuga boy from the old days, the one presumed dead for over a decade...he put the pieces together quickly; he arranged for my team to be the first arrivals in this region...and for Kakashi and Kinoe to be sent as an independent team shortly after. You see, my dearest friend Susumu, this is all a part of Lord Danzo's grand scheming."

Susumu squinted, keeping his blessed eyes open and expansive, watching closely for ambushes. Some of his own people were awakening behind him, courtesy of Tenzo and Akemi's split-second protection. "Danzo Shimura's grand scheming, you say?"

Mamban nodded his mask. "That's right; you get it now! He wanted you all, and the four of us were to be his instruments—Mamban, Goda, Seshu, Cassy! A dynamic unit gifted with unique powers from our Lord's bosom buddy Orochimaru! So simple, so elegant...all a setup, all for the sake of retrieving Kakashi's Sharingan, Kinoe's genes, and your Byakugan in a single, well-placed move...all for the glory of Root, for the glory of Lord Danzo! It was an impeccable plan until I realized one simple fact..."

"Oh, do enlighten me..." Susumu said through bared fangs. He wasn't any happier to hear the other man's voice by the end of his exposition. "What's this simple fact?"

"The most important fact: we don't need Lord Danzo's involvement to carry out the plan we had been made a part of. His confinement to the Leaf prevented him from overseeing us directly. His scouts and messengers were mysteriously slain in transit, though I made good use of them as a part of my growing army. I never took care to learn the names of my disposable minions, but I'm quite sure that you would recognize a handful of them from your days amongst the Leaf, yourself. I must admit that my marks are not as pristine as Orochimaru's work, but they are enough to instill a certain sense of...submission. I had wanted to put you in my collection, Susumu, but my mark would not overcome the one you already bear. Unfortunate; you would make a lovely living trophy...but no matter, a mounted head is as good a prize as anything." Mamban snapped his gloved fingers, and Cassy dutifully dropped to the ground at his side, her maskless face grinning and her eyes half-closed with a seductive interest.

"You called, Master Mamban?" Cassy purred, looking up at him from a slanted position, legs spread slightly and one hand dipped forward to touch her fingers to the ground. Her back was arched forward in a way that accentuated the slope of her rear, as if she couldn't resist the urge to present herself in alluring ways. "Has Kakashi arrived yet?"

Mamban shook his head. "No, he's not here...play with Susumu and his brat in the mean time. I have a few escaped trophies I need to re-wrangle..." Rather abruptly, Mamban left, and Susumu made an attempt to follow behind him but was stopped by the lashing of three chakra threads. They were curled toward his neck, trying to choke him, but his Byakugan gave him clear vision of their path and their nature. With his hands layered with chakra, he swatted the prehensile strands away from him and severed their bonds at the halfway point.

"Cassy, you've done something rather brilliant..." Susumu couldn't help but compliment her creativity as his hands rose up with wind chakra coating his fingers, smacking away the strings. They had a peculiar color to them; the typical threads used by the Hidden Sand's puppeteers were blue, but Cassy's threads had a strange greenish tint to them; it was the color of her personal chakra, the element she held strongest. "You've created your threads out of the wind element to give them a slicing force. I wonder, have you ever had any puppets of your own, or are your weapons merely the strings themselves?"

Cassy turned her shoulder to the side, canting her head back and smirking. Her pointed chin led up to the rest of her face, lips puffed out and nose sharply angled. "I'll make _you_ my puppet, sweetheart," she said with genuine affection. "It's been too long since we've _really_ talked...I've missed you for so many years...have you found somebody else, or will I always be your girl?"

Susumu scoffed, turning his scowl into an aggressive grin, seeking to shatter the woman's delusion. "You were always _his_ infatuation, not mine...your silly games cannot deter me. Think hard before you answer this question, but: will you truly try to stop me from pursuing Mamban?"

"It's all I'm _here_ for...'sides, you and me have a little bit of a score to settle. It's been a long time, but you left us all behind to die in that prison up the hill from here...and even though I lived, I'm still pissed about it...so we're gonna go ahead and have a nice, long chat about our futures together..." Cassy made a sly approach, one foot in front of the other on high-heeled boots, navigating the only flat terrain for a mile with a steamy walk. "Earlier, I had my eye on the brat, but if you're on the menu, too, then I say '_yes_, _please_, I'll have some of _that_'..."

"Rethink your position, Cassy...you're following a madman into the mouth of hell. I'll send you through the gates, myself, if I must...but I'm begging you not to force my hand." Susumu's voice was even and his stance was statue-still, but on the inside he could feel himself burning. Though he had not gone completely all-out against Kaine, he had still taken an honest beating and been stabbed through his chest all the same. "Tell me the truth...are you willing to die with him? Not _for _him, but _with _him? He has been on borrowed time since he grafted that arm to his body, and I know that you must have realized that before you helped him..."

Cassy bit her lower lip, the playfulness softening into concern as she turned her head and lifted a hand to brush the bangs out of her eyes. They had grown a little too long, and the black tips were falling into the corners of her vision more often than she liked. When she talked that time, she didn't have the coy, sultry murmur, but a small, childish voice like a daughter fearing for her father: "I tried to tell him, Susumu, but he didn't care...I don't think he's on the same wavelength as the rest of us anymore, you know? But it doesn't matter to me—I do what he wants me to do because I owe him my life, and yes...yes, I will die with him, because it's the only choice I have. Don't you get it? We betrayed Danzo Shimura; we've been acting on our own for _weeks_. I want to die _here_ so I don't have to die _there..._" Cassy shivered as she thought of the things that would be done to her if she was captured. "But, no offense to you, I want to die at _Kakashi's_ hands instead of yours..."

"I'm afraid you won't be given such a luxury...Come at me, and I will put you to rest like the proper warrior you have become..." Susumu's eyes allowed him to see in every direction, but his focus was upon the young woman standing in front of him. She was shaken; he could see it as she trembled beneath her form-fitting robe. Subtle twitches, little palpitations in her heart; she was _terrified_, but it wasn't a fear of _fighting_; rather, it was a fear of losing something precious—something like Mamban was to her. "I am sorry for everything that has happened, Cassy, but I cannot let you stand in my way. He is going to hurt more people who matter to me."

Cassy sighed, rubbing her hand along her forehead and then over her eyes, wiping away a tear that must have formed because of the lingering pollutants in the air. "Yeah, well...Mamban matters to me more than anybody does, so I'll do what it takes to see that his life goes how he wants it to go. I'll stand here in your way while he runs off to play with his new girls. He's a beautiful creature with a will of his own and a poetic sense of wonder about this pathetic rock we dwell upon..."

"You've been misguided for so long, Cassy; _I_ know the feeling of being lost...but do _you_ feel lost, yet?" Susumu extended a hand toward her, open palmed and fingers curled in an invitation. "We both know that Mamban is gone forever; he is never again going to be who he once was, but _you_ can still be retrieved from this pit you've stumbled into...as can Seshu. Come to me, take my hand...together, we can find _you_ again."

"I'm _already_ _me_, Susumu...if you don't like it, then let's just get this over with..." Cassy shivered regretfully as she threw her arms out to either side and spread all her fingers apart, a string sprouting out of the tip of every single digit. "Don't you _dare_ underestimate me, either...I won't hesitate to cut you apart just because you saved me once."

* * *

Mamban found them quickly, thanks to his network of unfeeling informants perched through the trees and fulfilling their duties unflinchingly. They were like the little birds that were always blamed for spreading secrets. "Ahh, there you are!" Mamban called out with a bold wave of his arm. "I've been looking everywhere for the two of you..."

Akemi turned first, Rika second, and their eyes grew wide together and in unison. They each felt a peculiar burning sensation kicking in at their necks, a reminder of the pinkish scars that bound them together and signified their second chances at life. Akemi took Rika by the shoulder and pushed her back and behind; she barked out an order. "Run, Rika. Run out of this place and don't stop until you've gotten yourself home."

"No!" Rika countered, stomping her foot to the ground. "You promised that we'd both survive, so don't you even think about trying to sacrifice yourself to give me time to run like a coward!"

Akemi reached her hand up and grabbed Rika by the thick curls, pulling her into a firm kiss upon the lips, then broke away and gave a hard stare to punctuate it. "It's not a request, Rika. Either you run, or I throw you away from here with my own hands...Don't argue with me on this, alright?"

Rika wasn't budging. "I thought you knew me better than that...you _aren't_ going to be able convince me that it's alright to leave you by yourself..."

Akemi gave a frustrated huff, palming her face and scratching down the side of her left cheek. "Gah, damn it Rika...you're so difficult sometimes." She sounded irritated, but she was relieved in an odd way. She wanted Rika to be safe, but also wanted her to be nearby. "Just try not to get hurt too badly, or Kaine's going to give me a bunch of grief over letting his little girlfriend's sister break a nail..." she winked over her shoulder, but she didn't turn far enough to let Mamban out of her sight. She knew better than to give him any chances.

Mamban yawned from the side. "Well, now, this is awkward...should I come back later?" he gestured over his shoulder with a pointed thumb, then snickered to himself. "On second thought, I think this is a _very_ good time...Come here, children, and help me put something to the test..." Mamban was beginning to step gracefully in a trapezoid pattern, drawing a solid line with his footprints as he twirled and skidded along the dirt in his spontaneous dance. He snapped his fingers with a resounding crack, much louder than it should have been, and the trees began to rustle violently with movement.

Rika blinked, and by the time her eyes were opened again, the bare branches of the trees that had survived the obliteration were lined with Mamban's obedient soldiers. Their leader clapped his hands together, tossing out a sing-songy command: "Get them for me, my pets; add them to my reservoir!" At the end of his clap, and after a single moment of utter silence, more than a dozen of the soldiers pounced toward the surrounded pair of newly-appointed Leaf Genin below.

* * *

**Next chapter coming soon!**


	37. Building a Campfire

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Cassy was in over her head, and she knew it. Out of all the potential opponents who she could have defeated rather easily, there were two among the forces of her current enemies who could have presented a stiff challenge to her fighting style—Kakashi Hatake was the first, and Susumu Hyuga was the second. Her strings were meant to be invisible, impossible to predict and impossible to avoid; that was their strength. Two weeks prior, she had entertained herself by playing with Kaine until his Storm Release accidentally gobbled up the chakra that kept her strings formed; it was a bad time, but she wouldn't have fallen for that trap again. Susumu, on the other hand, could plainly see her strings and was even able to cut them with ease using his inherited Gentle Fist ability.

She could only hope to stall him, not defeat him; even though he was weakened by his battle with his student and still mildly disoriented by the grief of losing his village, there was burning rage in his white eyes. Cassy could see it clearly, and she gulped without meaning to, swallowing a thick lump in her throat and taking a step back from her stationary adversary. "So...you gonna make the first move, Susy boy?" she taunted him, tried to get under his skin with a sweet smile and an obnoxious nickname, but he was hardened. He had renounced the name Minoru, but he still carried some of those intimidating mannerisms that came along with the former title.

"I'll say it again, Cassy, and you should be thankful for my generous repetition..." Susumu flexed his brow, deepening his stance and pushing his right foot further backward, as if priming for a sprint. "Rethink your position."

"Are you going to kill me if I don't?" Cassy teased, slanting her head back and running the back of it lasciviously down her slender bronze neck.

"No...I won't kill you. I'll only _break _you. From there, I'll let Kakashi Hatake and the Leaf decide what to do with you..." Susumu's eyes gleamed in the sun, reflecting a vindictive glimmer.

"Ha! Listen to yourself, now...yesterday you wanted to crush the Leaf and absorb its power into yours...now you're going to turn me over to them? You've fallen, Susumu. No wonder Mamban couldn't stand to look at you any longer..." Cassy took her hand down from her neck and allowed her fingers to dance freely, threads extending off of every digit and wriggling unpredictably along the way to her target.

Susumu didn't fear her attack. His footing remained solid and his lids wide open. The veins of his Byakugan were deeply rooted in his face, the flesh scarred along their surface from constant strain and use. Though, what some might call overuse could also be called 'practice,' and his visual power was beyond that of what some might have expected. As Cassy's strings got closer, Susumu began to twirl about, fingers nimbly snatching the thin layers of thread out of the air and gathering five in each hand. The threads' wind-enhanced cutting power was neutralized by Susumu's own chakra, his grip holding onto her weapons without difficulty.

With all ten strings gripped and gathered, Susumu brought both arms down and back, aiming to yank Cassy with them and pull her close. Cassy was taken off guard by his speed, beginning to feel herself pulled, but her fingers gave up on her strings and they were cut ethereally, becoming nothing as Susumu's grip upon them became a grip upon empty air. _That obviously won't work, then... _Cassy deduced as she looked to her fingers. The sting of being yanked by the Gentle Fist was throbbing on her digits. She wasn't safe from that technique, even at a distance—it attacked the chakra, not the body, and strings made of chakra merely offered the Hyuga a chance to strike her from safety. _I'll have to improvise._

She had nearly fallen on her face when she was tugged, but caught her own momentum after a brief second of uncertainty; she barely avoided a face plant. Trying to look undeterred, Cassy shrugged off her embarrassing misstep. "You asked if I've got any puppets, right? Well...truth is, I don't have my _own _puppet, yet. Thankfully, you've got what I need." _Have to be quick, _she finished her thought, throwing both hands in the air and firing strings from them, curving their paths so as to keep them unpredictable. Susumu stood in place, preparing for another attempt at his own body. Cassy had deliberately worded herself in a way that should make him believe that he was her target—and nine of the strings did eventually find their way to him. The tenth, however, veered to the left and dug into the rubble to find an unconscious plaything.

Pulled out of the shaken ground, Medo Shuria's unconscious body became Cassy's puppet as the other nine strings were easily knocked away by Susumu's powerful hands. "I remember this one!" Cassy giddily proclaimed as her capture was made successful. She scampered on skittish feet to get behind her new puppet, noting that Susumu was already on his way to intercept and slice the string that she had planted. As a deterrent, while Susumu charged, Cassy formed a seal with her other hand and blew a gust of windy pellets that were something like a shotgun blast, aiming to throw him off his path or stop him entirely. She had a particular target in mind, ensuring that a few of the small bullets would find it and test Susumu's new resolve.

Susumu made to dodge the scattered wind, but there were too many pellets for his body to properly squeeze between or dance around. With a scowl, he realized that he couldn't keep running forward—he had to stop and exert chakra in all directions, forcing out the blue sphere of heavenly rotation that easily deflected her attack. In essence, his defense was a concession—he was allowing her to take a prisoner, but at the same time he was avoiding the damage that _must _be avoided.

Susumu's chest wound from Kaine's wooden blade had been closed, and his healing had taken him nearly to full strength again, but Kaine himself was still lying unconscious in the dirt at his mentor's back. Just when Susumu had thought that Cassy's attack had been deflected completely, his Byakugan caught sight of a few stray projectiles headed toward that unconscious young man, and he cursed his opponent's tactics. He turn his waist, yanked a hand back, and gave it a thrust forward to create a rush of air that funneled into a line and intercepted those last few particles.

With the shotgun attack dispelled into useless air, Cassy's distraction paid off. Medo was her new puppet, and she was situated behind his unconscious, strung-up body to use him as a shield. Stalling, still. There was nothing she could actually do to defeat the man who was her chosen opponent. _I've only got to distract him long enough for Mamban to come back; shouldn't be much longer,_ She thought, perhaps kidding herself—she knew that Mamban was unlikely to return for her, despite all his proclamations of her importance. He had recently started to say things he didn't really mean, and she hated it about him. He seemed so plain, so easy to read in his simple childishness, but it sometimes felt like his mouth was saying things with total confidence, while his body refused to listen to them; he had seemed like two people living in the same body even before he took Goda's arm.

"You'd take a human shield, Cassy? You were never so cold, before..." Susumu hoped to call out to her, to reach the girl who was still starving and afraid inside, but he could not find her. Medo was suspended in his way, the unmoving body of a loyal and long-manipulated friend. Were he still Minoru, he would have cut Medo down in a moment to get to the other side—but Susumu was actively trying to change himself; he was trying to become different from the person whom he had long ago and incorrectly convinced himself that he was. Rather than charge forward, Susumu forced himself to see value in the life that dangled in front of him. The conflicted, disgraced leader shook his head, turning his physical eyes down toward the ground, although his gifted vision was still everywhere. "What has he _done_ to you? _What has this __**world**__ done to you, Cassy!?_" There was clear anguish in his trembling questions, eyes glossed over and lids puffy red with a want to cry. He saw her as a little girl with missing teeth and a strange happiness on her face. Though he was saddened, no tears had managed toform...though they fought hard to squeeze themselves out.

Cassy felt a peculiar ping of remorse strike near the center of her chest. The shaky, unabashedly raw power of Susumu's voice caused her lip to quiver for a split second. She felt something, there and then; she didn't want to admit it, but she felt regret. Unfortunately, it was too late for regrets. Rather than answer him with speech, Cassy answered him with an assault—Medo's suspended body was covered by strings, and she used them to control every aspect of his body. One of them even extended into his mouth and down his throat to secure total control, in case he woke up and had something to say. For the moment, he was dormant and easily swayed. He was used to fly toward Susumu with kunai in both of his hands, his limbs awkwardly jerking left and right, behaving like a marionette and not at all like a man.

Susumu knocked away both kunai with his fingers, slicing them down the center and blunting their edges before jamming his chakra-layered digits into his former subordinate's wrists, pin-pointing the spot where Cassy's strings were making their attachments. The first one severed easily, as did the second; each time he cut one, the girl at the other end could feel pain tingling down her limbs, but she continued the futile assault with as much ferocity as her experience allowed. Medo's movements were more deadly than they would have been if the man were in his own control, but Susumu was better still than the puppet was. Within a span of seconds, all of the strings had been detached, though Cassy continued applying new ones and hoping to get in a good hit.

Her effort was futile. Staring at Susumu in defiance, Cassy's jaw was trembling, her fists were tightly clenched, and a slender branch of black was rising out from beneath her collar to taint the pillow-soft skin of her face. Her curse mark was beginning to spread as she got more and more agitated, and Medo was frustratingly tossed aside by the final thread that had managed to stay attached, one that was deftly wrapped between his toes and around his ankle. The still-living puppet would do her no good, not with Susumu's speed and precision.

Cassy took a deep breath, and Susumu was kind enough to keep himself distant while she formed a few seals and put her hands together underneath the swell of her breasts. "Why don't you just come closer and kill me, Susy?" She looked confident, but Susumu could see into her—he knew that she wasn't expecting to win, and he figured it out by the way her muscles twitched with hesitation every time she moved. She was high on adrenaline—adrenaline and the black chakra of her mark. She was also straining herself by producing so many threads and taking so many jolts of the Gentle Fist's indirect strikes onto her hands. "You're not afraid of someone like _me_, are you?"

"Do you really want it to end this way? I had hoped to get through to you, but my time and my patience are running thin—Mamban has done something that I cannot forgive by destroying this village, and I will not allow him to continue as he is right now. Know that I will kill him for what he has done, whether _you're_ still alive, or _not_. Tell me right now, Cassy: Do you want to die, or would you prefer to survive? Whatever you decide, it will be carried out with my next attack."

"So, that's how it is? You think you can just end this fight at your leisure?" Cassy tilted her head, looking strong and goading, but inside she knew he was right. Her strings were her only weapon. They were more than enough to deal with almost every opponent she could face, but for some inexplicable reason, Mamban had ordered her to fight one of the few men on the planet who could easily resist both her attacks and her seductions. "I'm not going to make a choice because you're never going to reach me!" She lashed her arms out, finally looking frustrated as her curse continued to fill out her face, reaching onto the whites of her eyes and tainting the pure gold of her irises.

"Fine," Susumu relented, emptying his lungs of their air. "Then I will decide _for_ you."

"Just try it!" Cassy wanted to say, but she didn't get to finish. Instead, it was more like a single-syllable _jus _that was cut off by a gasp. Susumu was within her personal space within the span of that gasp. His white eyes were looking up at her slowly-cursed face. As he saw her so close up, so ruined by the darkness, a single tear was finally produced by his ducts, the salty globe rolling gently down his pale cheek and then roughly lifted away by the force of his twisting motion.

He assumed a deep stance, picturing a series of circles on the ground upon which Cassy was standing. In his mind, she was inside the secondary ring of his envisioned pattern. He was its center; he predicted the act to come, and before he could be stopped, he set it into motion: _"Eight Trigrams, Sixty-Four Palms!"_ He pointed out two fingers of each hand, shoving them into two of his target's chakra points, then reeling back and striking four with double the speed, then eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and finally sixty-four until the final blow was struck with both hands as open palms, launching her away with the colossal power of his bloodline.

Ordinarily, Cassy was beyond fast enough to react to and deal with such an attack, but over the course of their fight, the tiny impacts from the cut strings were building up, gradually slowing her chakra network to a near-standstill, making her moves sluggish and her thought processes slower. She was being reduced to a standstill without ever catching on. Susumu used that sluggishness against her to produce an opening for himself; she had tried to make more strings, tried to stop his approach, but she found her system to be totally unresponsive—and then she was on her back, paralyzed and unable to believe it. Among Susumu's targets was her curse mark, located on the inner thigh of her right leg. Its chakra was suddenly sealed away from spreading any further along her body—temporarily, at least.

"Y-you're an _ass_," Cassy forced herself to say through a half-collapsed throat, trying to spit up at the face that was then looking down upon her. She tried to move, but her system was fully locked down. Each of her major chakra points had been stiffly clamped, and as she was lying on the ground without even the ability to twitch her fingers, she focused everything on trying to breathe. _Why am I struggling so hard to get air? Shouldn't I just let myself die, now? _She thought to herself, but she realized like so many others that she still wanted to live, even in defeat.

The single, glistening tear that had fallen from Susumu's cheek and been suspended in the air then finally struck the dirt. He spoke to her quickly, "Live for your own sake from now on, Cassy. Mamban won't be there for you anymore after what he did today...and I might not be there, either." Afterward, he leaned down to give her an apologetic kiss to the forehead that she found to be horribly patronizing, but her attempt to insult him over it was choked up by the sensation of sorrow all the same. He was the very same man who had callously left her to _die _a few years prior to that day; she couldn't understand why he was suddenly leaving her there to _live._ She watched him go, trying to move her hands, trying to trip him up with her mind, but finding no strength to do it.

Moments after Susumu was gone, a shadow came over her, a smaller frame than Susumu's but not by much. His face was darkened by the position of the sun behind his head, but she recognized the mop on his head. "Awake now, little brat?" Cassy chuckled up at him, closing her eyes and taking a deeper breath. The paralysis was going to last for a long time, she knew—she had never fought a Hyuga before, but she knew how bad it was to get hit by one, even with a glancing blow. She continued: "He spared my life...isn't that just the_ funniest joke?_ Minoru, the merciless bastard who threw his own damned children into fighting pits to test their worth, just refused to finish off a miserable wretch like me who doesn't even _want to live anymore_..." She had wasted a lot of breath, and found herself gasping for more air in the aftermath.

Kaine was awake, walking, and clutching his sword of wood. He looked down at Cassy, pictured a shuriken held on Makoto's neck, and flexed his hands around the solid hilt of his blade. "He shouldn't have spared you, I agree..." He was angry when he saw that she was alive. He had witnessed the tail end of the battle, seen Cassy thoroughly dismantled by the man whom Kaine himself had supposedly defeated. More and more, it felt like a hollow victory, some kind of symbolic surrender. He came to the conclusion that he hadn't beaten Susumu Hyuga after all—he had only defeated _Minoru_, the phantom of revenge that claimed to have taken the young boy's place over a decade ago.

"If you think he shouldn't have spared me, then _kill me_, kid," Cassy tried to cough, but her whole self was too seized up for the reflex to even kick in. "Just get me out of this world, help me forget all the bad things that happen to good people...He wasn't doing me any favors by keeping me alive...right now I feel pitiful." She wanted to writhe, to flirt, to give Kaine a coy expression, but even moving her mouth and tongue to speak was taxing her system to its brink.

"If you want to die, you're going to have to die on your own time...right now, I'm just going to make sure you stay where you are." Kaine collapsed beside her, falling into a crippled seat, and for the first time the woman on the ground could see his face in the light. He was beaten up terribly, likely by the explosion of the barrier. His cheek was sagging like its skin had been torn away from the muscle beneath, one eye sealed shut by swelling along his forehead, and a dozen or more deep wounds all along his arms and chest, no doubt cut by flying debris.

"You're _weak_, kid..." Cassy found herself saying with spite. "Looking like that, you should've just _let yourself vanish_..."

"I honestly thought about just letting it all go, but I heard that _voice_ again...I don't know if you get what I'm talking about, or if you even care, but I heard it _clearly_ this time. I saw her _face_, too. Makoto Mori is the girl you were threatening, the girl you could've killed...and she's the one who called out to me, who woke me up just a minute ago. She said 'Kaine, you're my hero, and I want you to be with me forever. That means you don't get to die yet, okay?' I can't die yet; that's what she was telling me...and now I don't know if I'm delusional, or if I'm having dreams that tell me what I want to hear, or if she's somehow actually telling me all this from a hundred miles away, but...I know that I want to survive for her." Kaine looked to Cassy with remorse on his expression, his hands chewed up and their gloves having fallen off in scraps a few steps away. His vest was hardly in shape. Susumu had put him to the ground and tried to keep him from being damaged by the blast, but it had only just barely been enough to keep him alive.

"That's lovely, kid...but while you live for _her_, I live for _Mamban_. I already know that Mamban's not going to survive the day, Kaine Hamasaki—I'm not gonna have anything to live for once the sun sets tonight." Cassy was crying freely out of both eyes, but she could only feel the anguish, not the tears as they streamed. All her nerves were in a state of total numbness. "That man who kept me safe, told me he loved me, carried me when I was hurt, and fed me when I was hungry...the perfect man, the one who picked the name Mamban for himself, is the only reason I ever wanted to survive as such a monster...do you know what I mean, kid?"

Kaine perked a brow, seated sloppily along a row of mounded earth. He hadn't seen the total decimation of the village, but the state of the former training fields served as a good primer. "I actually _do_ know what you mean, and for a while I thought Master Minoru was the person who I wanted to serve and protect forever...turns out that Minoru as I knew him was never a person at all, just a mask. When the mask fell off, I think I finally saw the person I actually respected underneath it all...Susumu Hyuga isn't a terrible man, inherently, just a man with a terrible _past_. It makes me think about people...what kind of woman are _you_, Cassy? Beneath this mask, I mean."

Cassy rolled her eyes, at least able to do_ that much_ freely. "You're a trip, kid...when'd you start getting so thoughtful? I swear it's only been two weeks since you were trying to kill that other girl for looking at your girlfriend the wrong way..."

"Honestly, it feels like it has been a lot longer...I've been talking with Kakashi and Tenzo. They're good men; strong men. Their people are kind and generous, from what they've told me...you're from the Leaf, too, right?" Kaine pondered down at her. His whole body hurt, but he was awake and he intended to keep his mind busy so he didn't get tempted to cart his half-destroyed self uselessly into the fights he could hear clashing in the distance. "Tenzo told me something that really didn't make sense, at the time, but I think I get it now...'You don't have to be the strongest in the world to be strong enough to make a difference.' Do you think _I_ made a difference today?"

Cassy was trying to ignore him, because she couldn't punch him in the mouth and shut him up like she wanted to. Instead, she sighed and gave him an answer. "For all the good it'll do when the whole world crumbles, yeah, I think you made a difference for Susumu. He was cold, like Mamban, but after he fought you...he actually shed a tear for me. I saw it falling when he made his choice to knock me down. Earlier, I heard you talking to him about that girl and her tears, and what it all meant to you. It sounded like a load of crap to me, but you know something...? Master Mamban doesn't cry. I don't even think he _can_. No matter what evils he's done, or how badly he hurts himself, or how arrogant he is for trying to defy Lord Danzo, he doesn't _cry_ for anyone...in the end, I don't know if he _really_ loves me...but I know that I love _him_...because I _have_ to love him."

"You don't _have_ to do anything...besides, weren't you trying to seduce me and Akemi back by Monolith Point? Seems to me like you've got plenty of love to give out to others..." Kaine was smirking, trying to crack jokes, but he felt the weight of the day. It only barely struck him that he was making small-talk in the middle of a war zone with a woman who had been—and still was—his enemy. Though the dust from the blast had settled, he got the sense that the real battle had only just begun. Maybe that's why he was cherishing the chatter.

"What can I say...?" Cassy replied, licking the rim of her naturally-red lips and pointing her gold eyes over toward Kaine. "You two are pretty alluring...each for different reasons."

"Yeah, well...I think I can safely say that both of us are taken. Besides, I still think you're a _cruel bitch_." He wasn't joking when he said that, but although he should have wanted to kill her on the spot, he realized that he simply didn't have the urge anymore. When he had first used his Storm Release, the goal of its voyage had been to strike that very same woman dead on her feet. On that earlier day, he had cherished the sound of desperate pain that shrieked out of her...but two weeks later, there she was, lying weak and defeated and quietly crying her eyes out. She wasn't just a faceless enemy, or some creature to slay anymore—she was human, with all the faults and delusions that such a heritage entails, and she had _always_ _been_ human. She was still the woman who threatened his Makoto, still the woman who had tossed him and Akemi around like playthings, still the woman who wanted to gouge his eyes out and rip him apart at that very moment.

Yet somehow he couldn't see _that_ woman anymore. He saw the tears, he felt the spoken and unspoken regrets. She had made mistakes; Kaine realized that she was just a little girl who was forced into a life that didn't suit her, and that she had adapted to it for the sake of survival. She spoke to him, her voice husky and quiet. "Don't expect me to stay friendly with you, kid; if I could move you'd be dead right now."

Kaine nodded, looking up to the afternoon sun. It was a warm day without the clouds. "Yeah, I know that...but since we're not killing each other right now, can't we just _pretend_ that life isn't so bad?"

"It's _always_ going to be bad...being merciful like your idiotic mentor isn't going to make things better, it's just going to get you killed when somebody comes looking to avenge their loss. We kill others because there's no better way to make sure the bad guys are gone for good..." as she lamented, Cassy finally felt the tears on her cheeks as they followed her upper jawline and dripped over her ears and hair. She wanted to wipe them off, but her arms were still very thoroughly disabled. "Bad people should _die, _kid; that's why Mamban promised to kill Danzo and Orochimaru for me. He told me that he'd make Susumu suffer for abandoning us all, but...now I wonder if he even _cares_ about us anymore. This morning, he told me he loved me and cherished me and would do anything for me, like always, but I didn't _believe_ him this time...even so, I still smiled and kissed him, hoping maybe that he'd somehow remember what things used to be like when we were part of Root. I wanted him to go back to who he was."

Kaine chuckled, shaking his head and rubbing his hand down his bloody cheek. "To think there's a person alive who'd wish they could _go back_ to being part of Root..."

Cassy hummed thoughtfully. An explosion sounded in the distance, muffled by terrain and trees. "Does it sound silly, kid? I guess it might to someone like you, with friends and family, but life for us was never a peach...when I met Susumu and Mamban, I was just a starving kid with no combat experience. At least with Root, we had a place to belong and comrades who watched our backs...Though, looking back a lot further, I guess it was bad luck that I survived getting this curse mark in the first place, yeah? Should've just died back then, back when I was _scared_ but still _myself_."

"You told Susumu that you still _are_ yourself, didn't you?" Kaine wondered.

"I am, but I'm not...I'm me, but the me that I wish I never became. I love myself, but I hate who I am...actually, just shut up about it, I don't care what you think of me..." Cassy closed her eyes, hoping to stem the flow of her watery eyes but failing to do it. She hadn't cried so much since the day she was run out of her home by war and forced to take shelter in the old schoolhouse. She didn't like the look of her skin after tears had traveled on it, either. It marred her perfection.

Kaine watched her from the side, debating with himself before he brought something up. "I heard Susumu ask if you wanted to survive or die, but you didn't say anything...so _I'll_ ask you, and I won't go away until you answer honestly: Do you want to live, or do you want to die?" Kaine was clutching his sword with determination, despite being mangled from head to toe and confined to a seated position.

Cassy was silent for a long time, the sun lazily drifting through the cloudless sky above. A final tear dropped from her left eye before she had completely run out of them. "I just want to be a kid again..."

* * *

Seshu felt pretty cramped in his new residence: the massive three-ton globe of wood and dirt that encircled him on all sides and pressed inward. He could feel his face scrunched and couldn't breathe, but it was alright—it would be fine. The dirt closest to him had already begun to freeze and crumble, giving him room to wriggle as it was molted and began to flow down and gather at his feet. The whole sphere was gradually turned to crispy ice, broken with a single satisfying kick from within. The shards of frozen wood and mud fell down into a small pyramid which the former prisoner was standing atop, arms crossed angrily. "Did that bastard really just run away from me? Damn it...now I have to go looking for him." Seshu muttered to himself as he blew a strand of hair away from his face, the long white locks mangled and coated with more ice than usual.

Though he was panting, he wasn't tired—it was an eager, crazed breathing that drove him. Each of his exhales emerged visibly as water vapor, but fell into nothingness as the air took them and warmed them. "Come out, come out, Kinoe..." Seshu whispered, keeping his head low and finding risen fragments of earth to cling to. He was caught off guard by his opponent's enormous earth technique, and he suddenly felt rather vulnerable beneath his feet. Wherever he stepped, he made sure to freeze the ground beneath—it might not have been enough. The lump that had captured Seshu, even though it was temporary, had come from deep, deep underground. It was so quick, so smooth, that he never even felt a tremor until the two halves slammed together around him.

He was still having trouble feeling his own face. He imagined that there would be bruises all over his body thanks to the crushing force, and he had been hoping for his enemy to get cocky and thrust a weapon inward to try to finish the job—he could have worked with that. Instead, he felt like a rat surrounded by traps, every speck of dirt—and there were many specks—potentially fuel for Kinoe's next move. He was strong, and he knew he wasn't going to get killed by a few slabs of mud, but it hurt like hell and made it hard to breathe, so he wanted to avoid it at all costs.

While he wandered, he kept both eyes open and he eventually saw a figure clinging to a tree on the other side of a massive rock that had been unearthed by the turmoil all around it. "Found you..." Seshu whispered, pleased with himself as he snuck up on his prey. His steps were silent, the bottoms of his rubbery boots touching the ground with the lightness of a feather as he circled around and found a vantage point behind his target. It was Kinoe, and he looked worn out—clutching an arm and panting. He must have used a lot of chakra on the earthen prison.

No games, not this time. Seshu was in it for the kill, and he brandished a frozen rod with a sharpened tip in his right hand, laying himself out across the soft earth under his belly. He was in a ground-level sniper's nest with an overhang of displaced earth at his back and behind his feet. Rather than throw the rod like a spear with his hand, he called upon his wind nature to give it a gust, guiding it silently but precisely through the air to strike Kinoe through the side, already beginning to freeze him. _Ha...direct hit!_

By the time the impaled target was revealed to be a wood clone, Seshu already felt a stabbing pain in the rear of his right thigh, practically skewered through to the dirt by the impaling force. "Gah! What...!? That's not _possible_..." Seshu turned his head to see what had hit him, finding a wooden stake jammed into his leg but not drawing blood. _That's not right...it should have been frozen. _He reached back and grabbed the stake, pulling it out of his flesh and grunting. Regularly, such a wound would have leaked a lot of blood, but the man was nearly frozen inside; the blood barely flowed at all. Examining the wood, it began to crystallize in his grip and then crumble away into ice like it should have. _Why did it take so long?_

Seshu stood up, looking around for where it had come from...his opponent was smart, staying out of sight and attacking from a distance with long-ranged weapons that could somehow bypass his freezing aura. "Come on out, Kinoe...don't be such a coward!" Seshu was blowing smoke—he knew what a shinobi was supposed to fight like, but he hadn't felt cornered by a proper stealth assault for years. Sneak attacks hadn't worked on him since he obtained his ice release through Orochimaru's experiments. It was an odd thrill to know that a painful attack could come out of any direction, and that his position had already been revealed.

_I could raise a dome, but that would take a lot of chakra...my mark should be giving me plenty, but I can feel it straining already. I must have taken a bigger hit from that earth prison than I thought I had. _He flexed his arms to test their tenacity, and he didn't feel especially weakened...so why hadn't the aura frozen the spear? As he was wondering, another one found his back and sliced through his robe and into the skin beneath, opening a small gash through his side before striking the ground in front of him. The pain shot through him, but again the blood didn't leak from his body. He turned to face the direction of the assault, bringing both hands together and thrusting them forward to fire off a wave of chilling air. The gust was like a snow flurry, and everything that was touched by one of the tiny flakes turned to ice and then fractured into little piles under its own weight.

With a huge swath of the forest frozen over, there was no sign of his target anywhere in the rubble. "Damn it...this is starting to annoy me!" He heard one single footstep behind him, and he turned to lash his hand out, forcing another wave of freezing chakra to overtake the air at his back, but it was a false alarm. He could have sworn that he heard something, but his imagination was playing tricks on him and Kinoe was nowhere to be found.

But then he _was _there, the wood-user's movements impossible to hear against the wet mud as he stifled the sound of his steps with his chakra. Seshu rose a fresh lance to fight off the wooden one that was being thrust his way, and when their weapons clashed, the wooden one held—it didn't freeze over. "How in the...? Kinoe, what kind of game is this!?"

"It's Tenzo, nowadays," the smirking, vestless Jonin said through a light strain. His weapon was thick and heavy, weaved into having a sharp blade. "Have you ever made a campfire, Seshu?" Tenzo asked coyly, pulling his weapon away from the lock it had with his opponent's and then striking at the enemy's wrist, forcing him to drop his spear after the bladed impact cut another hole in his clothing, the glove nearly ripped in half by the harsh cut.

"A campfire...what the hell does a _campfire_ have to do with anything?" Seshu picked up his spear and started to freeze the ground at his feet with its tip, focusing his chakra on expanding a patch of ice to cover the immediate area. Tenzo reacted quickly by hopping into the air and pressing his heels together; when he landed, there were wooden spikes created by his chakra jutting into the frigid surface from the bottoms of his shoes, allowing him to keep his traction. Much to Seshu's chagrin, Tenzo _still wasn't freezing._

Tenzo cleared his throat, explaining his meaning: "Well...we shinobi have a lot of tools to make fires. Some of us can breathe it out of our mouths, others have matches, others carry flint and tinder...but to make a fire without any of that, do you know what you have to do?" Tenzo's dense wooden pole was still firmly grasped in his hands, pointed threateningly toward Seshu.

"Tch, never had to learn...I always had Goda or Mamban to light the fires when we were on missions together," Seshu claimed, guarded and keeping his distance. The rules changed when his enemy was capable of getting closer without the cold side effects; there was no denying that Tenzo was a better fighter overall than Seshu was, and the only true advantage the man in the black robe once had was his ability to slow things down and turn them useless. It seemed with a sobering suddenness that his advantage no longer existed.

"That's no good, Seshu; every ninja should know how to make his own fire...first, you take one stick," he said, hoisting his bladed rod with a demonstrative hum. "Then, you rub another stick against it, so that it heats up and eventually catches fire...It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort to get one going that way, but fortunately I have a shortcut." He strained his forehead underneath its protector and opened the tip of his weapon to reveal its inner core with his chakra—there was a separate, thinner stick twirling rapidly inside, heating the wood from within and keeping it too hot to freeze over. "This wood responds to my will...all I have to do is tell it to keep spinning, and my weapon stays too hot for you to stop."

Seshu bared his fangs, shaking his head and loosening some of the ice that clumped his hair together. "That's a load of _bull, _Kinoe! You're not about to defeat _me_ just because you know how to make a damned _campfire!_"

"Then come here, Seshu...I'll prove it's not just my survival skills that make me strong." Tenzo had his confidence back. All it had taken him was a moment to think about it; the answer seemed pretty obvious to him in hindsight, and it was seemingly the silver bullet that would allow him to win the battle. Seshu did indeed come, and his attack was frenzied and skilled, but Tenzo was stronger, a bit faster, and certainly better equipped. Ice would occasionally flake along the edges of his weapon, but before it could reach the core and slow its spin, the heat would turn it away and thaw the outer edges.

It was rapidly made apparent that Seshu wasn't going to win the head-on battle, and after Tenzo's thrusts and swings were getting closer, landing hits, occasionally causing bruises and cut skin, Seshu dove backward to separate himself from the skirmish. "I'm not gonna lose to you, Kinoe, I swear it...even if I have to play dirty!" He brought his fingers up to his mouth, pressing them together and breathing out a harsh breath—it was a whistle, a shrill one. From the few leafless trees that were still standing, a complement of masked figures hopped obediently out from their hiding places to gather at Seshu's side. There were a few dozen of them, though barely a tenth of Mamban's total army. "Get him!" Seshu ordered, pointing a harsh finger toward Tenzo and smiling wickedly.

Tenzo quickly formed a seal for wood style, erecting pillars of timber from beneath the earth and aiming them for the feet of the reinforcements. Many of them were captured, but Seshu's thick layer of ice began to creep up the edges of his technique. Spinning the cores took a lot of focus, and he could only do it for a few planks at a time—all the rest were frozen before they caught their intended opponents. The dozens began to swarm him, and his staff did a lot of good for him as he managed to toss away more than half of the assailants with broad sweeps.

After a while, though, Seshu joined in beside them and overwhelmed Tenzo's capabilities. The sole Leaf ninja in a sea of forced defectors was caught from behind by the slash of a sword, but before it cut his skin he produced a layer of wood to push it out from his back. Another hit his side, but it was similarly pushed out. He backed up, trying to filter his opponents to his front, but many of them were playing support from behind and keeping his options limited by throwing kunai.

Tenzo's eyes were shooting in every direction, and he found himself wishing that he had a Byakugan to keep track of all the different angles of attack. He was capable of fighting them off, and he did so admirably, but their tenacity for battle—brought on by their existence as mindless slaves—made the reinforcements very difficult to manage. Tenzo killed a few of them, slashes through the neck or impalement through the chest, but there were still many more. After a mighty struggle that survived for several minutes, he was brought down by Seshu, a sweeping kick taking his spiked boots out from underneath him and putting him on his back atop the ice.

Tenzo groaned as he collided with solid, frozen earth, the impact rattling his bones and chilling his spine. He smelled blood that belonged to his fallen enemies, and his weapon was finally kicked away from his hand while a group of Seshu's lackeys grabbed him by the wrists and ankles, holding him down and displaying him as a prisoner for their commander all sprawled across the dirt. "Good work, lads," Seshu said, clapping his hand to one of their shoulders—the unfortunate soldier was frozen at the joint, but he made no cries of pain or any attempt to reel back as the ice completely overtook his body and turned him into dusty snow that blew away. "How's it feel to get ganged up on and beaten, Kinoe?" Seshu asked, twirling his spear over his head and giving a sigh of victory. "Not how I wanted to win, but it's all the same at the end—this is war, after all. We can't afford to play nice forever."

Tenzo struggled against those who were holding him, but there were two men at each of his limbs and he wasn't quite strong enough to get rid of them on his own. Seshu put one foot on each side of Tenzo's waist, standing over him and holding the icy lance above his own head, the implement now fastened into both of his hands and pointed downward. "If you beg for your life, I'll _really_ enjoy it...it won't help, but go ahead and do it anyway...you may not be Kakashi, but I want to hear _someone _beg."

"I won't beg, Seshu...if you're going to kill me, you had better do it fast...because Kakashi _is_ coming, and you don't want to miss your moment because you've been gloating, do you?" Tenzo defiantly mocked the man above him. He wasn't ready to die; far from it—he still had a lot of things he needed to do, especially involving the Fourth Hokage's Legacy. It would be a rude thing to do if he died before Naruto even grew into needing his help. Still, he was beaten and outnumbered; for all he knew Kaine, Rika, and Akemi were all killed in the blast already.

"Fair point, but I'll kill Kakashi, too, if he wants to show up...I doubt he can do your little campfire trick, so I'll have _fun_ with him." Seshu moved to thrust his spear downward, aiming right for Tenzo's heart. The latter tensed, keeping his eyes open and facing death with the kind of dignity that a shinobi deserved. And then Tenzo heard the absolute _last_ two words that he ever thought he'd hear in his dying moment:

…

…

…

...

_**"DYNAMIC ENTRY!"**_

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**Thanks for reading! The next chapter is coming soon.**


	38. Just a Soldier

**Enjoy!**

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Seshu was mid-gloat when he caught the visual blur of a small blue object, followed briefly by a line of orange, which in turn was attached to a body that was dark green and capped off with a domed blackness that had a conspicuous white gleam upon it. Seshu couldn't quite tell what it was, but he felt the blue thing hit his cheek with the kind of force reserved for trees that were uprooted and thrown by a tornado. He heard the echo of 'dynamic entry' hit his ears as it followed him along through the air; he had been ripped cleanly from where he stood by a colossal impact, and he could swear that he heard the crack of his jaw when he was struck, but his body was too numb to know the difference. He didn't feel a thing until he found himself buried into the bark of a nearby tree, the whole thing snapped in half and tumbling forward; the hundred year old oak landed on his chest for a secondary blow that pinned him to the dirt and took the wind out of him. It had all happened so fast that he hadn't even realized that his left shoulder had been dislocated by the impact.

His freezing aura took over, turning the fallen tree that held him into an icy nothing, but by the time he could see past the brown, peeling trunk, he was floored by the image in front of him. Some kind of whirlwind had blown through, decimating each and every one of his called-upon soldiers. The rocky field was littered by battered, broken men in robes—some of their masks were shattered and strewn along beside their limp forms. Standing in the middle of a whole ring of them was the clarified, high-definition version of the blur he had seen before losing consciousness for a moment. Seshu stood up, but it hurt to do so. "Damn it...who the hell are you supposed to be!? Wait, no...don't tell me...that bowl cut, there. I know who you are..."

The newcomer's mouth turned into a blissful grin, two rows of white teeth gleaming in the sunlight—there was even a visible twinkle along the left incisor for a moment as he turned his head and brought a thumb to point toward his face. He accepted the recognition and ran with it. "That's right! I'm the legendary beast of Konoha, the Leaf's most handsome crusader, and the eternal rival of none other than _Kakashi_!" He spins around carelessly, but he ends the twirl with both feet spread and his thumb pointed high to the sky, the arm outstretched behind it. "I am _Might Guy_!" His teeth gleamed a second time.

"Might Guy..." Seshu said through clenched teeth. He looked a bit worried by the new development as Guy helped Tenzo to stand, the latter brushing himself off and none the worse for wear.

"Thanks for the help, Guy," Tenzo said, shaking the hand that helped him up and then turning to look toward Seshu. "How did you manage to kick him like that? I've been struggling against him due to his ability to freeze and slow things with his Ice Release..."

Guy furrowed his generous eyebrows, looking to Tenzo and squinting, then leaning in close and humming. He all but ignored Tenzo's question, searching for the source of the familiar feeling in his gut. "You know, I could swear that we've met somewhere _before_..."

Tenzo deflated, dropping his hands down and looking to the ground. "Yeah, we have...I'm Tenzo, one of Kakashi's old teammates in the Anbu. Don't tell me you forgot my face _already_, Guy...?"

Guy shrugged, nodding his head and crossing his arms with his eyes closing. "Tenzo it is, then!" He then turned to Seshu, whose reinforcements were in shambles after some quick taijutsu work on Guy's end. The Green Beast's hands were mildly scuffed up by broken masks, a few fragments of the white porcelain getting caught along his vest and legwarmers during the skirmish. "You say this guy freezes things...well, that's not a problem for _me_." Guy thumbed his chest, keeping that stance of showy strength.

"Not a problem...?" Seshu wondered out loud. He pressed his left hand down to the ground, stepping on his palm and then jerking his upper body backward to yank the arm forward and lock his shoulder back into its joint. He grunted quietly as he rotated it, testing for positioning, but he was still numb from everything else—his curse mark was keeping the pain subdued, but he started to feel physical difficulty while talking. His jaw had certainly been fractured by the kick, but not outright shattered like it _should_ have been. He was lucky to get away with such minimal damage, but he knew that luck wouldn't last him forever. "Don't tell me _you're_ good at making campfires, too, Might Guy!"

"Ha! The fires of _youth_ will keep _me_ warm!" Guy opened his stance and held his fists out at his sides, bare-knuckled and ready to deliver some solid pain. Seshu lifted his guard and intensified the force of his aura, but Guy stepped straight through its superficial barrier and delivered a harsh punch to the cursed portion of the white-skinned cheek. That time Seshu's jaw _did _shatter, and he was pushed back by the impact to tumble ungracefully across the ground, leaving behind a dense trail of ice wherever he skipped along the rocks.

Seshu was angry, to say the least. "That doesn't even make _sense!_" he barked from a crater his butt had created in the ground by the force of his landing, but his mouth was stuck open and unable to close after such a tremendous blow. He was staggering when he managed to stand back up, and he brought his hands together forcefully. He couldn't worry about chakra anymore—against Might Guy, just like Kakashi, there was no room for mistakes. Kakashi's reputation may have extended further along the continent, but if one were to ask within the Leaf, including Anbu and Root, Guy was equally as respected as his rival. "I'm not buying this crap about _youth_ keeping you _warm_!" Seshu was building chakra and nearly popped a blood vessel in his eye as he strained. "_I'll turn you both to ice!_"

Guy's eyes widened slightly as he felt the air grow colder, and without hesitating for a second he returned to Tenzo's side to grab him abruptly by the wrist and throw him out of range, twirling on his foot to gain momentum and fling the wood-user clear out of the field and into a patch of trees. "_Out you go!_" Guy declared in a sprightly, upbeat manner. The surprised gasp and subsequent shout of confusion sailed off into the distance before becoming silent over the treeline.

Seshu was forced to bust out laughing by what he saw, shaking his head and _trying_ to bring his teeth together to grin—he was stuck with a dumb look along his jawline, half his mouth perpetually hung open. He could feel crunching within his cheek when he tried to close his mouth. The bone fragments within were loose and jostled around, threatening to poke through his skin if not for the fortifications of his curse. "Did you just throw Kinoe like a _ragdoll_? You've got _no idea_ how long I've been wanting to do that..." As he had watched Guy throw Tenzo, Seshu had also noticed that there was a thin but encouraging layer of ice along the knuckles that had come into contact with his own cheek. The fires of youth seemed to have limits. "I'll go ahead and get this over with!" He gave a long exhale, then finished weaving signs and building power, shouting out the title of his oncoming technique with crazed tweaks in his blank, white eyes: "_Ice Style: Sphere of Absolute Zero!_"

The earth began to crack and break, but when it did, it was no longer dirt; it had become clear ice. Instantaneously, a radius around Seshu's feet froze, reaching out and curling skyward, culminating in a frozen layer that made up a thick dome above and in every direction; it sunk into the dirt as well, filling out a perfect sphere of white, opaquely solid frost. It was hollow inside, and Guy was encased within the huge ball, as well as Seshu—it was the very same technique that Seshu had produced near Monolith Point, but it was smaller, more focused on chilling its interior.

As Guy felt the temperature lower further and further, he flexed his fingers. The cold was slowing him down already, small crystals forming across his skin and clothing. His breath was foggy and his body was starting to shiver, but he still had his bold smile. He reached behind his back to slip a set of nunchaku out of the belt that held his metal Leaf symbol. He twirled the hard rods around, moving himself constantly to keep his muscles limber, working out and warming himself up. "I'm hot-blooded! _This_ won't slow me down!" Guy howled as he tugged the chain of his nunchaku, the snap of tension sounding like a broken bone when it locked in place.

Seshu chortled, rubbing a hand down his face. He was sure that the fight would be over quickly; even _he_ could feel how cold it was getting. It didn't slow him, but it certainly licked at his uncovered face. "If your damned blood's so hot, maybe I'll just freeze that first!" Seshu sounded a bit rattled, partially because of his uncooperative jaw and partially because he was shocked that his opponent hadn't been frozen on the spot. All that bluster and rhetoric about being hot-blooded seemed an awful lot more literal to him in the wake of such endurance. It didn't matter, though—nothing that he knew of, except for himself, could survive absolute zero. The ultimate goal of his dome was to bring the air down to that temperature.

"At Absolute Zero, _all_ things cease to function. Not even your atoms will be able to move anymore! Already, this dome is negative seventy-eight Celsius; you should've already frozen, but it's only going to get colder from here...can you feel it, yet? Your skin should be going numb, your body should stop responding...your blood will stop flowing and your mind will no longer form thoughts! I'll freeze you from head to toe and present you to Kakashi before I kill him the same way!" Seshu was focusing all of his chakra on lowering the temperature. Although the concept of cold related to a _lack_ of energy, Seshu was sweating as he pumped more chakra energy into his chilling powers. The salty droplets froze like plain water as they fell off his cheeks and forehead.

Guy was feeling the pressure lighten around him as the air slowed down and lost density. It felt like there was a constant gust that licked away his heat and turned it to cold. His muscles were still working, but they were notably deterred by the air. He was measuring the speed at which he could twirl his nunchaku, and with each cycle of the solid black rods, he noted that his movements were slowing down considerably. He decided to head inward for a trial attack, twirling his weapon about and holding it over his head as he took quick steps toward the ice man, leaping through the air to keep the ice from slipping him up. As he got close to Seshu, the latter jumped backward and kept his distance with a scowl on his face. Guy smirked at the retreat: _So, he's afraid to fight me up close. I don't blame him! _Despite the apparently-dire circumstance, Guy was still brimming with confidence.

He packed away his nunchaku, patting them with apologies as they were nestled in his pack; he had hoped to put them to use, but he decided that he wasn't going to need them.

* * *

Akemi and Rika were ambushed on multiple sides by Mamban's lurking forces, each of the nameless, faceless soldiers attacking without hesitation or personality. They were as puppets were, totally unfeeling and obeying their strings without protest. Akemi drew her knife, sliding a strand of wire string through the newly-added loop at the base of its hilt, tying it quickly. Her back still hurt from the small wooden stakes that had been driven into her flesh during the explosion and its aftermath, but she was used to such minor pain.

With her blade secured on a long, nearly-unbreakable thread, she put herself to work on trimming down the size of Mamban's army—she swung the knife in her hand cleanly across a nearby neck, satisfying herself with the organic gurgle from beneath the mask of her victim. She turned to the next, slipping the freshly-bloody edge between the ribs and through the heart. Leaving the knife inside of his body, she kicked him away and turned to continue the same sweeping kick in an arching lash, dragging her heavy foot across three oncoming faces. The three of their heads were snapped aside, sounding off like a row of three xylophone bars before losing their momentum and falling limply to the ground. Akemi tugged the wire of her knife to pull it back toward her hand, then kept its momentum going to sling it to the opposite side, impaling another would-be attacker through the upper skull with its precisely-sharp blade.

Throughout the fight, she kept an eye on Rika, but it was surprisingly easy to keep her safe. Her student was flowing just like she was; more often than not, the two of them were joined at the shoulder or hip as they dealt with all sides together. Two weeks didn't sound like a lot of training, but Rika was a special exception to the common rules—she learned quickly, built up quickly, and had a natural affinity for Akemi's fighting style. When Mamban had easily dispatched the pair, they were much weaker than they had become. They were becoming a formidable duo, although Mamban himself had not joined the fray—he watched critically from the side, running his gloved left hand across the red chin of his mask.

Rika's knife lacked the hilt attachment that Akemi's had, but it suited her well, even so—she was slashing and flaying, delivering decent blows to her closest threats. Although her strength wasn't _quite _enough for the rapid killing blows of her sensei, she disabled the thoughtless human marionettes temporarily, and then Akemi did her part in finishing them off whenever she got the chance. Rika opened her mouth, sheathed her knife, and breathed a wave of flames between two fingers to create a hefty, glowing stream of heat that charred three more of Mamban's swarming ranks.

Akemi tossed her blade like it was part of a bola, tugging her string to influence the sailing knife to wrap around a pair of approaching goons, giving them a yank and then stomping a foot into the dirt, raising up a pair of rocky spikes for them to stumble onto and impale themselves over. In unison, they fell limp, and Akemi pulled her blade back toward herself. She had gotten the idea for the stringy attachment from two things: the method she and her team had used to initially subdue Mamban the first time she fought him, and also from her brief battle with Kaine before Monolith Point's near-total destruction. She had realized how much she needed her knife, and how difficult it was to pick it back up in the middle of a battle if she dropped it.

She didn't have a lot of time to train with the string before moving out that morning, but she did what she could and it worked quite well. She wasn't particularly worried about the fodder—the bodies were piling up with gashes and broken limbs, becoming almost waist-deep by the time the onslaught ceased. Their dark master was the cause for concern and the two women were both panting. They were out of breath, but not exhausted entirely—they could have taken on many more, and Mamban did have many more in waiting. That said, the three-hundred and twelve soldiers he set out with had been sliced nearly in half, between Seshu's regiment and those sliced down by his pet projects in front of him.

With the fighting settled and the pair's knives being cleaned in unison with a wipe along their pantlegs, Mamban clapped his hands. "Better than ever, my dear ladies," he began, moving forward and stepping over his fallen fighters. "You've done exactly as I'd expect—you've gotten stronger _together_!" He stopped atop the highest pile, four bodies who had been stricken through by another of Akemi's long, stoney spikes all together. Mamban's black-booted feet were stepping on a pair of masks, using their limp heads as platforms. He hunched down, bent at the knees and still fondling his chin with a pair of fingers. "Still, I think the student still has too much mercy in her."

Akemi draped her arm in front of Rika, pushing her to the back again when Mamban had begun to move. "She'll learn..." Akemi said, then realized what it meant. Was it right to kill without question? What if all of those mindless puppets were just like the population of Monolith Point? What if they could have been saved by Kakashi's sealing techniques—and for that matter, where had Kakashi _been_ that whole time? She shook her head to clear her mind, looking to Mamban with utter defiance and a lick of her lips. She had gotten blood on herself, black and coagulating. Her enemies were practically zombies, or so it felt like—their bones gave way to her blows, and their skin split at the behest of her knife with little encouragement. "She'll learn that killing is sometimes unavoidable." Akemi looked to Rika, keeping Mamban in the edge of her sight. She felt a sting along her neck, her scar acting up—its wound hadn't completely healed through. It was easy to remember what happened the last time she allowed him to get the drop on her.

Mamban snickered. "She wears the headband of the Leaf...and so do you? When we first met, you had one of Susumu's bands...the second time, you had none at all...and now, a brand new leaf dots your forehead! How odd; I thought it took much longer to become a proper member of a Hidden Village...do you suppose that they're merely using you to draw Susumu and I out of hiding?"

Akemi scoffed. "You really think I'd fall for that kind of cheap manipulation? Tenzo's the one who brought us here; he's part of the Leaf, and seems to me like he'd be really valuable. Why would they send him to help us if they wanted to use us as bait?"

The man in the red mask had a sinister answer. "Do you see your beloved Tenzo here _now_?" He opened his arms in each direction, inviting a look around. "It seems as if he saw that his power was useless against me and decided to abandon the two of you...that's too bad. Now I get to have you _both_ to _myself_." He moved in a flash, just as he had done in Monolith Point, and just as then, Akemi and Rika were not fast enough to counter him when he arrived behind them.

"_Down_!" Akemi screamed, trying to convey to Rika to duck. They both moved to escape Mamban's nimble fingers; he was making the same move as before, but his predictability turned against his game. His hands were ducked and his targets rolled forward together. Akemi had grabbed Rika's hand and pulled her along, assuming that her student wasn't skilled enough on her own to escape the enemy's grasp.

"Hmm...not bad, not bad!" Mamban said with another halfhearted clap of his hands. "I can stop going easy on you, then!" He followed them along the ground, rolling just as they had done, catching up to them before they stood and gripping them by the wrists. He stood himself up and spun around, Akemi and Rika each in one of his hands and stretched out at the arms while he moved faster and faster. He seemed intent on ripping their arms off, but his actions were purely physical—neither of his cursed kekkei genkai techniques were being used.

Akemi could feel herself getting lightheaded as she was spun about, but she didn't lose consciousness. With swelling pride, she could see that Rika was still stubbornly awake, as well, both of them struggling to twist their bodies and hit the ground with their feet. The three figures twirled as one, taking on the appearance of a pinwheel spinning in high winds.

"Round and round we spin!" Mamban sung out with a high pitch, giggling as his grip tightened on each woman's wrist. Akemi still had her knife's thread wrapped tightly around the opposite wrist, and while she couldn't fight the centripetal force that wanted to rip her in half at the waist, she was able to twirl her arm and reel her knife into her hand, then gradually work it up to her teeth. With a monumental effort, Akemi pulled herself closer with the arm being spun, and with a lash of her neck, she jammed the tip of her knife into the flesh of Mamban's own wrist. It was his new arm, the right one, that she was held by, and the new blade of her dagger sunk into it nicely, drawing red blood from beneath and bringing out a surprised yelp of pain from Mamban. He loosened his grip upon Akemi, but still had Rika—though, he didn't have her for long.

As Akemi was flung through the air, she twisted herself and caught a tree branch with both hands, twirling upon it like it was a flagpole and landing atop the sturdy wood to gain her bearings. Rika was still in trouble, and so Aki dug her own knife into the bark of the tree at her side, keeping the thread around her wrist, then she dove downward with arms outstretched and hands formed into open palms. She landed upon the ground near Mamban's feet, shoving her chakra into it and jammed a pair of sharpened earth-spikes upward where he stood.

Still in surprise over how much the blade had hurt his hand, Mamban wasn't ready for the trampoline at his feet that fired him off his balance and launched him through a ruined building, the remnants of the Truth Village's medical center. He crashed through its dangling wall and found himself hampered into a supply closet, a door jostled into closing on top of him. Somewhere along the way, he also realized that he had dropped his grip in Rika's wrist. He crossed his arms and made a hmph in the darkness of the closet.

Akemi had caught Rika's free-falling body and brought her safely to ground level several paces away from the pile of slain bodies. There were still over a hundred soldiers waiting in the wings, obediently staying out of Mamban's scuffle. Akemi was leery, but thankful—_Why's he holding back so much? He could've just finished us once we were in his hands. _She felt along her neck, then looked down to check Rika for any injuries. Her wrist was already starting to show swelling from the tightness of Mamban's grip, but she had been saved from anything worse thanks to Aki's quick catch and soft landing.

An explosive force came out of the hospital, shooting for the sky; if the building wasn't ruined before, it was certainly ruined after Mamban's right arm delivered a chakra-infused blast that knocked its whole mountain of wooden debris up and away from him. He was left standing alone and surrounded by a shallow crater at his feet. He breathed deep, enjoying the flavor of soot that accompanied the power 'given' to him by his slain comrade, Goda. "You two, you two, I try to be nice, I play with you like friends, but you keep biting my hand!" Mamban tsked under his mask, a dry and hollow noise. "I think we need a new game!"

"Brace yourself," Akemi said over her shoulder to Rika, both of them up on their feet. Akemi kept her knife in the tree behind her, most likely to use it as leverage in case she was caught again. The wound that was on Mamban's exposed hand was already closed, but the curse mark that lined its pale skin was growing darker, reaching further. Akemi aimed her eyes at him, fixated on his mask and that spreading black. "You're some kind of creature from hell, aren't you...? You won't die, you take slaves, and you pass yourself off as some child who doesn't know any better..." She stepped forward with defiance in herself. She didn't feel sad anymore; the village was gone, many of the people she knew were dead or possibly dying—and maybe Tenzo _had _abandoned her. In the end, however, she couldn't feel sad. Anger eclipsed it all.

"But I know the truth about you," Akemi said, raising a finger and smirking with slyly creased eyes. "You're as sane as any of us, Mamban. I saw the change when you thought your girlfriend got fried—it was short, but it was there. You know how to get serious, and we're through with games. Let's get this going for real..." Akemi reached her hands behind her head, tightening her headband and pointing her thumb to the Leaf symbol. She had grown to like it, as odd as it might have seemed. It was a split-second decision, and she had made it off the basis of Rika thinking it made them both look 'tough,' but she didn't regret it. She punched her hands together, rocky gloves seeping out through the leathery ones that she wore all the time. Her fists got heavier; stronger.

Mamban sighed wistfully, amused and confused. "You think I'm an act...? Yet you thought Minoru was real, did you not?" He laughed with the same undulating, carefree pitch as always. If he was sober, it wasn't showing. "Your perception is so deliciously befuddled, my dear girl! There has never been a day in my life where I have been anything other than the man whom I have always been and always wanted to be!" As if on cue, he began to step around in a circle, one of his impulsive dances with simple but fluid steps coming out. He stepped over the bodies of his minions, the weight of his body squeezing small trickles of blood out of previously-coagulated wounds when he put his feet upon them by happenstance.

Akemi sneered, and Rika stayed behind her sensei but kept her eyes open. The man was strange, and neither one of his selected prey were going to give him a second without supervision. There was an odd sense in the air that it didn't really matter what they did; he was toying with them. They had seen his punch, they had felt the catastrophe that it caused; he could have erased them both with either one of his hands if he chose, but for whichever reason, he was prolonging his confrontation.

Akemi started to step backward and yanked her knife out of the tree, dragging it back into her grip, guiding Rika to come with her. Mamban's attention seemed unfocused, like he didn't know what was going on anymore. His dance dragged out for several minutes, and he didn't say a word. Without a verbal indication, Akemi and Rika understood one another and turned in synch to flee. They had some sense of defending the village, but it was in ruins already; they were aware of Mamban's numerous soldiers, but the masks were awaiting his commands and he seemed reluctant to ever _give_ those commands. Though they saw it as an opportunity, the duo inwardly knew that their escape plan most likely played into his intentions perfectly.

They were fast; they ran mightily, wind at their heels trying to keep up, but Akemi and Rika _were_ the heirs of speed. That was how it felt to them, anyhow. They drifted off into a sort of high brought upon by the circulation being robbed from their heads; even when they felt ready to pass out from their own blinding speed, they continued. There was no way he could have caught up. They were gone. Free.

And then Mamban's hand clutched Rika's neck mid-stride, snatching her away from her fleeing pace. Akemi saw the absence instantly and ground her feet into the dirt to skid to a stop, turning mid-slide to toss her knife as an attempt to rattle Rika loose. The darting blade was caught between the fingers on Mamban's left hand. He flicked his wrist and sent the weapon back to its owner, all the while hoisting Rika high with his right and chuckling. Akemi ducked backward, the gleaming silver blade of her own weapon whizzing past her nose and slicing off a few stray strands of hair—she would have been furious about that if not for already being furious about letting Rika get picked up.

Akemi set her knife back into her hand, ready to throw it again, but Mamban raised a finger and wagged it tauntingly. "No, no! That's not the game we're playing anymore. I'll snap the girl's neck if you throw that again! You've got two options, 'sensei': if you come at me with your bare fists and try to yank her from my grip, and I promise not to kill her in the _mean time_."

Akemi looked to the knife; it had been caught like nothing and nearly took her head off when it was sent back at her. She decided to sheathe it, playing by the rules so long as Mamban had Rika in his grasp—the hand that held her was the unusual one, the one that had punched out Susumu's barrier. As far as Akemi knew, he wasn't able to produce acid from it even if he tried, but the idea didn't give her much comfort. She watched Rika writhe and kick, but she raised her hand and spoke softly. "Calm down, Rika...don't agitate him."

Mamban cooed softly, bringing his free hand up to brush down the side of Rika's face where a tear had rolled down—not a tear of sadness, but one of breathlessness that was squeezed out by her struggles to gasp for air. "She's right, little dove," Mamban whispered to Rika through the slit in his mask. "If you hold still, I won't have to squeeze so tightly to keep you in my grip! Everyone wins!" He gave the top of her disheveled black hair a pat, and despite every piece of her survival instinct telling her to struggle, Rika trusted the words of her teacher-slash-lover and stopped her squirming. Akemi would get her out of that situation—the promise would be kept no matter what it took, and Rika knew that beyond any doubt. As she slowed her fighting, Mamban actually kept his end of the deal and loosened his grip somewhat. It was still a vice, but one that allowed for easier breathing.

"That's good...good job, Rika. I'm going to come to get you now, okay...?" Akemi patted her knife's hilt to ensure that it was tucked away. She wasn't a fool; she was quite aware that attacking Mamban at his current level of power spelled out a suicide attempt, but it was her only choice. The kind of depravity that filled her enemy's mind was the sort that didn't make empty threats—she fully believed that if she disobeyed the rules, Rika would be fatally broken. The only option was to try to pry her most favorite ray of sunshine out from the tight hold of pure darkness. _He_ was the cloud that tried to stifle the day, and although the real sun overhead was bright, the sky seemed to flaunt desolation and gloominess.

Akemi made her move, suspecting that it might be the last move she made, or the last moment of hope she ever experienced—one of the two of Mamban's terrorized victims would probably die, as she thought, but she desperately wanted it to be _herself _and not Rika. Despite the love she experienced and the promise she made, she was still an outcast with no full-blooded family. Kaine was her brother, but they shared no genes; they had no solid obligation to protect one another. She had taken Rika to bed and declared her love, the blissful connection felt true and meaningful, but Akemi had the feeling that she could be replaced. She was a soldier; soldiers fought until they died. Their funerals were brief and then they were forgotten by their friends, family, and country.

She reached Mamban and had her hand drawn back for a punch. She struck air; even while holding Rika in one hand, Mamban was too nimble even for the dextrous Akemi to keep an eye on. He was in and out of her peripheral vision, mocking and dancing whenever she made to swipe at him or aim her legs for his mid-section. She felt like she was boxing against a shadow, striking empty air and following ghosts on the edge of her sanity. How could his level of skill be so much higher than hers? She trained daily, nightly; she fought with everything she had and was even driven by the desire to protect the single most important person in the world to her. How, then, was a maniac with no connection to the world around him so vastly capable? What was _he_ fighting for?

As much as Akemi wanted to believe the romantic notions brought up by Kaine and Susumu, the truth remained clear to her at a strong will and unerring resolve were not enough to win a fight—sometimes, it took a knife and the raw skill, speed, and strength to put it to good use. She had always put herself on a list with the top one-percent of all shinobi; perhaps it was ambitious of her, but she and Kaine were—aside from Minoru—always the best ninjas in the Truth Village. To hear Kaine's horror story of facing Kakashi, to see Mamban's true level of agility zipping in and out of her consciousness...she felt much more like an ant than she ever had before. Rika called her name, and she momentarily snapped out of her doubts to refocus. She closed her eyes, mimicking something that Kaine had done—and something she had thought Minoru had done when he was 'still blind'. She listened for the sound of Rika's voice carried by the wind, the rustle of leaves where Mamban's feet fell.

She thought she had him—she turned and swung her right arm with all her might, anticipating where Mamban would wind up. She felt her knuckles collide with hard flesh, and for a moment she smirked, but then she felt the fingers of that flesh turn inward and clench along her fist. Her crystal green eyes opened and she lost the color from her cheeks. She was caught flat, and Mamban's mask filled the whole range of her vision. "Aki, look out!" Rika screamed, struggling again as if trying to create an opening, but it was no use.

Mamban pulled Akemi by the arm, dragging her close and kicking her in the gut. The blonde was thrown back by the impact, the wind knocked completely free of her lungs and her legs feeling numb as the impact channeled through to her spine. She momentarily feared that she had been paralyzed, but feeling slowly returned to her lower extremities. Once she felt confident in hopping back up, she did so, and went for Mamban a second time. _As long as I occupy him, as long as I play by his rules, he'll leave Rika unharmed...I'd be no fun without her, right? _She tried to reassure herself that such was the case, but she could never know for certain. The worst case scenario was that Kaine had been killed along with Susumu and that Kakashi and Tenzo had abandoned her as bait to lower the barrier and bring in a larger force at a later time.

When it was all said and done, Akemi was just another soldier. With the Truth Village gone and a Leaf headband laid above her eyes, she was just a nameless grunt—she wondered idly if the Hokage had even been given names, or if Kakashi had simply requested three headbands for the sake of gaining trust. She trusted him after that—she knew how big of a deal it was to be invited into the fold of a Hidden Village, and she pounced at the chance to belong to something. Her loyalty to Minoru, the Truth, had never been what she thought it was...it would be no surprise to her if Kakashi Hatake was just another man who liked to use pawns to his advantage.

On her second attempt, Mamban was still keen on toying with her. She became very familiar with the sensation of punching thin air, stumbling forward on her toes and curving around to strike an entirely different spot that was identically full of emptiness. She couldn't even get a hold of the slippery serpent's robe when he passed her by. Rika's voice was still calling out, her body dressed in brown still undulating and thrashing in an attempt to wriggle loose. Suddenly, Mamban seemed to grow tired of the distraction and delivered a decisive blow.

Akemi saw it coming; she saw it coming but she was too slow to prevent it. A strong backhand landed square on her shoulder, shoving the joint inward and pressing the top of her humerus bone harshly into the rounded joint that carried it. If it had just been a bruise, she would have shrugged it off, but Mamban went further than that—the pressure upon her arm kept building in the nanosecond of impact until it was too much. Her arm collapsed inward and she felt the brutal crunch of bones folding over one another and compacting. The whole area was splintered about inside her shoulder and she felt a white-hot poker jammed into her flesh. As the break was made real, the rest of her body was thrown away to collide with yet another tree on her opposite side—her left arm was useless, not simply dislocated but completely without a 'location' to return to. She shrieked with delayed reaction, barely realizing the extent of her injury until she tried to move and looked at the limpness of her left limb. She stumbled down to the dirt and leaves when she pried herself away from the broad trunk of the standing oak.

"Oh no, it looks like I broke my toy," Mamban pouted, holding Rika a little higher. "Guess I'll just end you both and run off to find Susumu again..."

Akemi blurted out the only thing she could think of to keep the psychopath entertained—"What's the second thing!?" Her eyes were closed, her right arm clutching her left and her teeth clenched to the point of nearly cracking some of the rear molars. "You said there were two options...what else can I do to save her, Mamban?" There was resignation clear in her voice. She had been willing to fight, but with one arm and not a single touch on her opponent while using both—not to mention a hostage—she had no more resolve. The fight was over; the game was not.

"Ohhh, you're interested, then? I should tell you that you're not gonna like what the second option is..." Mamban waved Rika left and right, swaying her feet around. When Akemi gave up fighting, so did her pupil.

"I don't have to like it...I'll do what I have to do to get your hands off of her..." Akemi was tight all over, her muscles burning and fingers digging harshly into her palms. She wanted so badly to get her revenge, but it was beyond her reach. In retrospect, Kaine's involvement wouldn't have made much difference. Even without his acidic touch, he was handling her with no trouble at all. He was simply in a different league altogether.

"Well...the second option is to slice your own throat. Bleed all over the dirt until you're dead at my feet, and then your precious girl will be free to go. I give you my word." Mamban tucked his free arm under his waist and tipped forward in a respectful bow.

Akemi flexed her arms, one hand reaching for her knife. She was just a _soldier_—soldiers died, had funerals, and were soon forgotten. It was expected for a fighter to meet an early end—Rika would mourn her, and Kaine might, too, if he hadn't died already. Otherwise, who would even know? Her village was in shambles, her master had abandoned her, and even her new allies were nowhere to be seen. It was better to be mourned by Rika than to allow her life to be lost to a madman. If she didn't follow his "Fine...I don't think I can trust you, but if there's even a _chance_ of her survival...I'm going to do what it takes." She made eye contact with Rika, flashing a sad smile and trying not to look doubtful. If they were both going to die, Akemi had to admit to herself that she wasn't strong enough to let herself watch it happen. "Take care of yourself, Rika...If there's some kind of afterlife, I'll be sure to watch over you, probably wait for you. Don't miss me too much, yeah?" Aki turned the knife without hesitation, driving it toward her own neck.

"_Aki no, stop!_" Rika managed to choke out, refreshing her struggles against Mamban. The latter was entranced by the oncoming violence. He was trembling with the anticipation—he lived for bloodshed and sacrifice. A voyeur of the sickest variety, he wasn't happy until he could wallow in somebody else's misery. "_Aki, I love you, don't—_"

A hiss of wind surged through the forest just before Akemi's blade drew blood from her scarred-pink throat. Rika was still crying and still begging, but then the girl with curls was conspicuously silent. Akemi stopped her suicide attempt just in time, and looked to Mamban in fear of the worst. The man in the red mask was no longer holding Rika, and in fact he was shaking out his left arm where she had once been. _Did she escape him!? _Akemi thought incredulously. No, that couldn't have happened...even a direct kick to the wrist hadn't been enough to loosen his grip in Monolith Point, so it must have been someone else. _Kaine? _She speculated, but ruled him out. She followed the path of the whirling leaves, realizing that the gust of wind hadn't been natural—some quick-moving force had created it. "Tenzo, is that you...?" she asked aloud, then gasped as she realized that it was none of the people she would have suspected. It wasn't even Kakashi.

"Master Minoru...?" Akemi whispered weakly, her hand over her mouth as tears welled up. It couldn't have been—truly _could not have been_. That man was a monster...wasn't he?

With Rika cradled in his arms, the man once named Minoru stood up and set her onto her feet, his body turned away from Mamban but his bright white Byakugan seeing him all the same. "Minoru is gone, my cherished Akemi Yamaguchi; my pretty little _liar_..." there was an unspeakably clear affection in his tone, despite his recalled memory of her betrayal. He turned to look at her, and he had a warming, disarming smile on his face. It was genuine—more genuine than Akemi had ever seen a person smile. "The truth is that I am Susumu Hyuga...and I have _always_ been him. I've lied for much of my life, grown accustomed to it, but I am ready to _finally_ open my eyes again. The ugly, grisly world had compelled me to turn away, but I have seen the beauty in its pulse once again...and I refuse to allow this cancerous growth to continue tainting our miraculous survival." He turned to Mamban, and the smile went away.

Mamban laughed giddily, staring at Susumu from behind the safety of his mask. Even so, he knew that his old comrade could see his face and further, all the way through to his immortal, broken soul. "You paralyzed my hand...shut off its chakra flow to keep my acid at bay...you're as skilled as ever, Susumu! So, how then did a runt like Kaine Hamasaki ever drive a blade into your chest?"

"Ours was not a fight of bodies, but a battle of wills...and Kaine Hamasaki's will was stronger than mine. But be assured, Mamban, I am no longer the man who lost to him...so I suggest that you don't underestimate me, or you will become the first person I've killed with my own two hands since the end of our war..." Susumu was primed for battle, veins bulged all around his eyes and arms extended with knees bent.

* * *

Rika ran to Akemi's side during the dialogue, kneeling at her wounded master's side and reaching into her own hip pouch to find first-aid materials sufficient to craft a sling. She had spent time with Makoto in the Monolith Point General Hospital, and she could recognize a severe fracture when she saw one. "Aki, you were going to _kill yourself for me_...?" she whispered, wetness still covering both cheeks despite being wiped away a dozen times over. During moments like those, she regretted the choice to abandon her sleeves.

Akemi had a dumb smile on her face, wondering if the dream she was living in was actually what it felt like to die and transition into heaven. The man she had once admired had suddenly come to the rescue of herself and her beloved Rika, his voice tender and endearing; the odds were impossible, given what she knew. His survival was one thing, but his choice to save Rika above all else was something else entirely. That was supposedly the same man who had sent a team of three rookies along with her to 'trim the fat' from the village. Perhaps he hadn't noticed the Leaf headbands...? No, he had pointed them out himself. He had knowingly arrived to save that beautiful woman from the clutches of darkness...yet there was a time merely hours ago when Akemi was certain that Susumu _was_ the darkness.

"I would kill _anyone_ for you, Rika...even _myself_," Akemi answered in stunned near-silence. She wasn't able to move, her body in shock from both the pain of her decimated joint and the rush of confusion that followed what had just happened. "He wouldn't have let you go even if I did it, and I _know_ that...but I'm too weak to even _imagine_ watching you die..." her working arm was raised to run her hand through Rika's hair, twirling some of the blackness around her dirtied fingers. "But you're okay; _we're okay_...Master Minoru is here for us now...he's going to stop this evil world from spreading any further, just like he always used to promise..."

Rika smiled, muttering something correctively, "Isn't he _Susumu_ now?" she was leaning down to kiss Akemi's lips the moment after, smiling pleasantly and closing her eyes when the moist tap of mouths was returned and amplified, a hand reaching around her head to pull her firmly close. Even on the battlefield, surrounded by death, destruction, and despair, the two were comfortable in one another's arms. If the world itself had ended within the span of that single kiss, there was no doubt in either of their minds that they would have been satisfied with the lives they had lived.

War had a habit of robbing lives from youthful lovers, and yet Akemi had made a promise to Rika that they would both survive. By some miracle, some force of nature, the wicked Minoru had become benevolent and arrived less than a moment before Akemi had opened herself up for Mamban's sick amusement. As the shared kiss ended, Akemi mused about something: "Maybe it's _not _just luck, you know?" Rika had blushed through the kiss and backed up, ears burning red when Akemi talked to her, smiling as she was busily at work trying to set the mangled shoulder to be held still. Her sensei continued to ponder while she held still. "This kind of coincidence...it kinda makes me wonder if fate _does_ have a hand, and that we're being carried in it."

"I don't care _why_ it happened, but we're both alive...I think we should just get you away from here before things get too bad." Rika was no expert, but she had set Akemi's arm in place and gently lifted the other woman up from her slouch against the bark, feeling blood along her own hand that was still leaking from older wounds. "You're in no shape to fight anymore..."

Akemi shook her head, unable to find the will to break out of Rika's cradling grip, but also not wanting to leave that place. "No...let's stay. I want to see Mamban's smug face get throttled into oblivion."

Rika rolled her eyes, but she relented without any hesitation and set Akemi back down against the tree, sitting down beside her on the right to keep away from the tender, vulnerable area of the busted shoulder. "Fine...but if it gets bad, we're leaving...and I'm only letting you stay because _I_ want to see him hurt, too..."

"Mm, I _like_ it when you act like you're in charge, Riki-pie," Akemi purred, sliding her arm around her student's waist and hugging her close at the hip, tucking her head onto the soft shoulder nearest to her.

Rika settled in with Akemi; they were rather close to where Mamban and Susumu were facing one another, but there was a pile of bodies and fallen trees in between—they could just barely see over them to get the spectator's view. It was a safe vantage point with just enough risk to be a thrill—they felt like schoolchildren sneaking a peek at an adults-only stage show from high in the rafters. "Riki-pie, huh?" the recipient of the pet name tried to subdue her giggling amusement, but she couldn't resist feeling giddy. She had recently come dangerously close to perishing, the pain of bruises on her neck only just then setting in, but she had already forgotten about evil. Their world felt peaceful despite the very real war zone. In the end, it only took the love of one important person to make _any_ place feel cozy like home.

The sun felt brighter than it did before, and Akemi Yamaguchi didn't feel like 'just a soldier' anymore.

* * *

**Only a few chapters left, now! Thank you all for reading this far! As always, I promise to have the next entry up shortly. See you soon!**


	39. No Survivors

**Enjoy!**

* * *

The air was getting colder by the second, but Guy remained undaunted by the prospect. His breaths were showing and his body was becoming unresponsive, but he wasn't mentally hindered very much by it. He looked to Seshu with a sparkling grin. "You're brave to face youth in its purest form! I salute you!" Guy brought two fingers across his forehead, then sent them off with a farewell motion. "After I've beaten you today, I would like to fight you again...is it a deal?"

Seshu scoffed, arms crossed and lip turned up in a snarl. The temperature had dropped to negative two hundred and thirty-eight Celsius. Even the waterless air had become still; Seshu's robes were beginning to freeze despite resisting his usual aura quite easily. He felt himself shiver, not from cold, but from nervousness. That man in the green jumpsuit with the fluffy eyebrows didn't even seem bothered by the freeze. What was the secret—how was it possible for a normal man to move in such an environment? Seshu shook his head, holding his hand out pointing a gloved finger. "You're not beating me! This place is going to hit absolute zero in a matter of seconds; even if you're somehow still alive, you won't be able to move."

"You'll see what hard work can accomplish!" Guy responded, moving his arms out to either side and then flexing them down at the elbow, pressing himself tightly together and bending at the knees to release a howl. "Youth will always prevail!" His eyelids opened wide and his teeth clenched together, and another shout of high energy escaped him as his body began to swirl with blue, visible chakra. The freezing wind in the dome became hot lashes of chakra, the confined space filling with the pure heat energy of Guy's strength. His skin began to blush red where it was visible, quickly melting away the ice that had gathered over his fingers and cheeks. "_Fifth Gate—Gate of Closing—Release!_"

Seshu was blown back by the force of the wind in his own shell, raising an arm to block his eyes from the sailing ice crystals that were launched his way by the pressure. "No...this is unreal..." he murmured to himself, feeling the environment turn warmer by the second. _This guy's chakra is overpowering mine...I had better armor up. _Seshu formed a handsign, and along his body there formed a thick coating of flexible ice, the clear layer bending the light along his skin to create prisms that sparkled with rainbow light against the walls of his confining prison. From head to toe, he was covered by the hardest, coldest ice that his ability was capable of producing, yet he could still move within it as easily as ever.

Guy's hair was whipped straight up, veins throbbing in his forehead and along the backs of his hands. With the fifth gate open, he exerted his strength and with a single step he was within range of his opponent. A strong fist connected to the icy layer along Seshu's gut, and despite the solid impact, the ice held up beneath that initial strike. _Not bad, _Guy thought, having all the time in the world to ponder. Seshu seemed strong, maybe even fast—but Guy could feel himself moving freely in a world that was made of tree sap. Seshu was hindered by the weight of his own body; in the split second of Guy's thoughts, the white-haired ex-Root hadn't even noticed himself being jabbed in the stomach by a fist as hard as iron.

Guy felt iciness crystallizing on his knuckles as he ground the punch into the layer of armor, but as soon as he pulled the first punch back his forceful chakra melted it away. He shoved his other fist into the same place, doubling Seshu over with the impact, then delivered a third strike that was a brutal uppercut to the chin, launching his opponent high into the air until his back slammed into the gently-curved roof of the dome.

It took Seshu a moment, but he realized that he had been hit. The pain was minimal—despite a crack along his chin after the cutting slam, his armor held up nicely. The problem that he _couldn't_ overcome was the pure _speed_ of Guy. At Seshu's back, he felt himself digging into the icy dome, sliding downward along its surface like a wad of spit rolling down a window. Before he could gain movement after his shock, he was hit again by Guy, the green blur having closed the distance between them with a pursuing jump. Seshu tried to raise his arms to block, but it was no good. Might Guy was too strong, too fast, and too determined. The air was no longer falling toward absolute zero; Seshu caught himself wondering if it would have even mattered, had it done so.

Guy was putting himself to work, grabbing Seshu's wrist and flinging him like an arrow into the ice at the ground. There was an audible, slight crack, but it wasn't enough to break the icy armor. Guy followed Seshu down, delivering the back of his heel into the base of the enemy's spine, looking for a weak point in the layer of defense. Small cracks were splintering across the surface, ruining the clear complexion, but he wasn't quite able to break through.

Seshu was gasping inside his forcefield of cold, his eyes tightly closed. The kick was painful—it had almost shattered through the whole layer of ice, though he didn't want to admit how close he came to losing consciousness. It was a waiting game, at that point. He knew little about the gates, but he did know that they couldn't be opened indefinitely—if Guy's time ran out before the killing blow, it would be ease itself to finish him off while he recovered from the strain. The trick was going to be surviving. Another kick was pressed into the same spot on his back, but Seshu roared in response, forcing his hands together and exerting enormous amounts of energy into repairing the deepening crack in the ice. _Just a bit longer... _he told himself, teeth tightly grasped and eyes sharply shut.

Guy could feel that his assault was getting nowhere. He turned to strike the gargantuan frozen dome behind him with his fist, colliding with it and causing a deep rumble, but the ice held against his collision. _That's how it's going to be, then. _Guy turned to behold Seshu, the iceman half-crippled on the ground and struggling to stand after he was given a moment to breathe. The first volley of hammering impacts hadn't been enough with the fifth gate, though it _almost_ was—there were clear signs of internal injury and a leaking waste of chakra; if not for the drawbacks of exiting the Gates, Seshu would have been an easy opponent once his wounds caught up with his frozen body.

Guy gave a grunt of determination—he wasn't going to wait very long for the end of the battle to come on its own. He had every intention of ending it with the next attack. Once again bracing his elbows against his side, he howled firmly and turned his neck upward, eyes reflecting the thick white-blue roof above his head. "_Sixth Gate—Gate of Joy—Release!_"

Seshu had gotten onto his feet just in time to see Guy's fist in front of his eyes. Time froze for a second; the doomed subordinate of Mamban was blinded by burning knuckles that were taking up his entire field of view, and he realized that his shield wasn't going to hold. _The Sixth Gate_...it really was a thing of beauty, but also a thing to fear. In a sense, it was Seshu's opposite. Whereas Seshu liked to take things easy, to slow the world around him to give himself all the time in the world to enjoy it, the gates _hurried_ things along. He hated it when people rushed to a conclusion, hated it when he didn't get the chance to sit and relax during a fight. Ever since he had been cursed by Orochimaru, Seshu had longed for peaceful days to lounge about, and yet he got saddled together with Mamban and his crazy schemes, Goda the insufferable blowhard, and Cassy, the girl who just couldn't _handle_ behaving herself. Some of that insufferable nature rubbed off on him, making him easily agitated, but beneath it all, he still wanted peace and quiet.

His life was a good life, he reflected. Perhaps it had a rocky start, and his curse mark had caused him immeasurable pain, but overall it was _good_. He met people, he got to kill people he didn't like, and he even got to see the power of the Inner Gates firsthand. His only regret was that he was beaten, but it wasn't at the hand of Kinoe, a man who had never acknowledged Seshu's existence during their mutual stay in the leaf, yet a man whom Seshu had always seen as a sort of unofficial rival. Manipulated and altered by Orochimaru and Danzo, the two of them did have something in common. Although it was a fleeting similarity and they were different in almost every other way, it was a thought that had occurred to Seshu numerous times. _Maybe he and I could've been friends if I had tried back then. Do __**you**__ think so, Goda?_

Guy's fist finally connected, and as expected, the ice gave way to its immense force. Seshu's nose was crunched down by the impact and the rest of his body was sent flying behind it. He felt weightless, and then he felt another impact at his lower back. He hadn't even blinked in the interim, unable to fully clench his teeth in pain before he was bounced upward by the bruising foot at the base of his spine. He was fired into the air, feeling even less than weightless—he was flying. If not for the rapidly-approaching ceiling, he would have felt free and clear. When his front half did hit the dome, the surface only barely cracked at first—and then a third and stronger strike rammed into Seshu's back, forcing him up and through the dense ice and into the open sun of the afternoon. It was warm and inviting, and produced a sensation that Seshu always hated.

Warmth was a curse; it came about when things were moving too much, putting too much effort into chaotic action. Seshu much preferred the cold, even as a child soldier in the third war. When it was cold, the enemy was less likely to do something violent. Many conflicts had been postponed thanks to a calm, snowy day. He hated the sun, because it encouraged people who hated one another to _fight _one another. The snow was an ambassador of peace, a gentle hand that laid across the soldiers and told them that it was _okay_ not to fight; it was _okay_ to huddle in close and tell stories around an isolated campfire instead. As Seshu lost consciousness, he smiled inside with thoughts of the Land of Iron. Thick snow was treated as an honored guest, in that place; it took residence along the trees, mountains, and villages unabashedly. Nobody tried to melt it, or force it out of the way. To Seshu, a place like that would have been a paradise. _If I survive, that's where I want to go...yeah...I'll take Cassy with me...it'll be fun._

A final kick was delivered from above, accompanied by blinding speed that Seshu never saw coming. He was throttled down into the dirt, a crater made by what was left of his distorted body. Parts of him had broken on impact, small and large bones alike. Seshu was no longer able to form thoughts as his awareness was stripped away; the fight was ended by his loss of consciousness.

Guy took a single moment to make certain that his enemy had been defeated; the dome was collapsing on all sides after Seshu was fired out of it and its integrity was compromised. It was certainly over; Guy closed his gates and staggered from the aftershock. He hadn't opened them for very long, but he was reeling from the consequences, even so. His hand went to his forehead, clutching tightly and rubbing away the growing headache. He had thought quickly to send Tenzo to safety, but he would probably owe the renowned wood user an apology for the loose method.

Kakashi had already gone on ahead. Guy had been left there with Tenzo to play support and clear the way to the _real_ threats—namely, a renegade Hyuga and a monstrous Orochimaru wannabe. Guy hadn't been told everything, but he was aware of Mamban and the things he had done. Guy's first order of business was to find and apologize to Tenzo for his quick actions, the second order was to rest and regain his strength—and the third was to do whatever it took to bring the monstrous red snake down for good.

* * *

Kaine and Cassy could feel the shaking of Guy's attacks from a few hundred yards away; they had seen the dome risen, and seen it fallen, but neither of them were in a position to help their respective 'sides.' It was pretty obvious from the brief glimpse of flashing green light that Seshu had been defeated by a shinobi of the Leaf, though neither Kaine nor Cassy could tell which one it had been. "Looks like it's all coming down on us," Cassy murmured. She had been silent for a long time, and her voice was weak when she finally used it again. "Aren't you gonna do something, lover-boy?" she _did_ still have the energy to smirk and show off sharpened white teeth on the edge of her mouth.

Kaine scoffed, still sprawled on the ground and bleeding on himself. His wounds were serious, but he had survived much worse before. "I'm not going anywhere, like this..." he admitted, lifting his right hand and trying to clench a fist. He got about halfway before he lost strength. It was getting worse instead of better; he couldn't even grip the wooden sword at his side anymore. "I learned a lot in this past month, a lot about the Leaf and how its people work. You've been there with Mamban from the start of it all, right? How did he turn out the way he did...? He seems even crazier than Susumu."

Cassy whimpered, closing her eyes and glad that her tears ducts had already been emptied. She didn't want to cry in front of that kid anymore. "He was so sweet when we met; my hero, my best friend. He had a strength that the others didn't. He was a good leader who mourned for the ones he lost, and killed the scum who _took_ them from us. This little testing facility, here—that metal box up the road—it wasn't run by Orochimaru himself, but we could feel his influence all through the walls of our cells."

"So, what does Mamban even want? Revenge on Orochimaru?" Kaine winced, a pain shooting up his nerves as he took a breath in the wrong way, agitating a slice through his side. The debris had flown wildly during the explosion and cut him up; in light of that, he had to wonder how Susumu had gotten out so clean.

"Revenge was the start...Mamban got us out of there, you know. We weren't _released_, we didn't _flee_—we came together and slaughtered our captors almost three years after Susumu abandoned us there. In that time, we experienced all kinds of hell, kid...and I tell you, you've got that same kinda look that we did. I know you get what I'm talking about." Cassy had her frightening grin in place, dimples on her bronze cheeks and a sparkle along her lips. "He wanted _more_ blood, so we all willingly turned ourselves into the Leaf...got close to Danzo by making ourselves known, then getting captured by his black ops..."

"You weren't afraid that he'd kill you?"

"No...I was never afraid when Mamban was with us...Seshu said it was a bad idea, but Goda was as dumb and confident as ever, so _he_ didn't mind...I just sat back and let it happen. I was still a rookie, then. When we fought to escape our first prison, that was the first time I ever killed a person...wasn't the last. Not even _close_ to the last." She seemed nostalgic, eyes glossed over as she swam around in a time other than the present. "But we were _always_ together, after that...Mamban was so strong, so charismatic, but over time we could all see him _changing_. We were scared of him for a while, but then _we_ changed, too...it was just part of the world we lived in. Survive long enough as a ninja and you turn into a creature that hates mirrors."

Kaine chuckled, shaking his head and running his hand through dirty hair. His fingers were still unresponsive, so he didn't accomplish much other than making himself look messier, but it was a force of habit. "Looking as pretty as you do, I'd be surprised if you told me you hate mirrors..."

Cassy chuckled, or tried to, but her lungs weren't strong enough to support the breath it took. Instead, she rasped and gagged on her humor. "Gah, now you're just flattering me...but like anyone else, I had to get used to the creature I saw looking back at me. In the mirror, I saw a gruesome thing wearing a pretty girl's skin, that's all...isn't that what _you _see when you look at me?"

Kaine nodded unapologetically. "Yeah, I think you're right." He tried to stand, but he couldn't. His feet gave out underneath him and he fell over onto his side, wincing with the sudden stop against the hard earth. "You're some kind of a monster in there, just like me," he started to crawl, wriggling through the dirt and getting up close to Cassy's face, looking his bright blue eyes into her deep gold. She sounded so human and vulnerable when she talked, but her eyes were still vicious; when he squinted, he felt like he could see a slight curve toward the vertical in her pupils. She was becoming a literal snake, or so it seemed. "If you could move right now...would you go to help Mamban? Even though you've seen how _insane_ he is?"

Cassy tried to nod, but again she could not. Her body was still fully paralyzed—Susumu had known what he was doing. He had even altered the pattern of a typical 64-palm strike to include her curse mark and cut it off from feeding into her chakra network. She was a sitting duck despite all of her resolve. "If I could move, I'd _kill you_ first...then, when you were minced up, I'd go to his side and do whatever it took to keep him alive for just a while longer. I owe him everything—_especially_ my life. If that's what I have to give him to make him happy one more time, then that's what I'd like to do."

Kaine shook his head, rolling onto his back beside her and looking up to the sky yet again. He wanted to see trees swaying along the corners of his vision like he used to, but the eruption that he was at the center of had stripped the surrounding land of all its trees and grass. He didn't even want to see what had become of the village; his home. He knew what had _probably_ become of it all, and his heart was beating too weakly to stand another harsh blow. Susumu had healed him, true, but the internal injuries he sustained while lowering the barrier were on weaker bonds than the rest of him. He was through fighting for the time being, lest he wanted to die standing up. "Not to spoil the mood, Cassy, but I think maybe you and Mamban should have a _trial separation_...you know, split up, go date other people...maybe there's somebody out there who's better for you."

Cassy sighed, closing her eyes again and trying to force herself to lose consciousness. She wanted to escape the brat, to curl up into a ball and forget the things she was saying and thinking to herself; she wanted Kaine to kill her, to free her from her helplessness. She certainly didn't want him making light of her terrible feelings. Guilt had ridden her for over a decade—truthfully she had never _wanted_ to be a killer. She had just turned out to be one by accident. "Shut your mouth, kid...I won't be paralyzed forever."

"Long enough," Kaine murmured, his imagination painting vivid pictures against the redness of his closed lids. "What was the last meal you had?"

Cassy ignored him for a while, but he asked again. She furrowed her brow, nostrils flaring with annoyance. "A persistent brat who asked too many questions—_that's_ the last meal I had."

Kaine rolled his eyes, answering his own question. "My last one was stew. Home made, touched with love, given to me in a clean wooden bowl by a girl who means the world to me. I expected it to be my _final_ meal; the last flavor I had on my tongue before I choked on my own blood. I thought Susumu was going to kill me, or that _you_ were going to kill me, or Mamban was...hell, it could've been Kakashi or Tenzo. So many things could have—_should have—_killed me today, but I'm alive, and now I'm gonna stay this way no matter what."

"Mamban's not going to stop until he dies, kid. Don't count yourself as a survivor just yet. If it comes down to it, he's going to take us both out for his own amusement. He didn't always seem like it, but he grew to _love_ killing; it's like he can't stand seeing a person _breathe_." Cassy could feel herself going weaker, her breaths smoothed down from desperate gasps to become gentle trickles.

"Is that why everyone wears masks around him?" Kaine asked, equally exhausted. He didn't want to lose consciousness, but it felt like the darkness was coming and he couldn't stop it. He had moved too much to get over to Cassy. Wounds had been opened up and blood was seeping out of him. He had tried to bandage himself up, but his range of motion was too limited by the pain and he gave up.

The grounded woman huffed. "The masks are for the _mirrors_, kid."

"Mm...I guess it's easier to be a monster when you can't see your old self looking back at you, huh?" Kaine pondered.

"It's never _easy_, it's just how things are..." Cassy exhaled, drifting away from the discussion and finally falling asleep from her lack of energy.

Kaine noted that she stopped responding, but he himself couldn't lose consciousness to join her. His mind was too active, his body too stubborn. He wanted to fight. To Kaine Hamasaki, stillness was _agony,_ and always had been.

* * *

"Do you think you can stop me, Susumu?" Mamban asked from a distance, standing upon a fallen tree with his stance spread wide and both arms pumping with chakra.

"I _will_ stop you, Mamban—your madness has taken too many others down into the abyss with you." Susumu was analyzing his opponent. Two curse marks, two different shades of black chakra mixed in with the man's natural blue-orange tint. The system was reacting violently to all of the power flowing through it.

"Oh, you're certainly one to talk about dragging others down, 'Minoru.' I've seen the gravestones...I know what they mean. They're the names of the people you've killed with your _own two hands!_" Mamban lashed his left arm, fingertips spraying a sheet of acid into the air in a slicing wave. Susumu anticipated it, nimbly lifting off of his feet and twisting in the air to clear the single attack. "Danzo knew about this village for years...he knew of its recruitment practices, its hidden location, everything! The only piece missing was who the ringleader was, but our mutual friend Kaine Hamasaki filled in those details dutifully!" Another slash of acid, another easy avoidance by its target. The ground sizzled and burned, craters of green gunk forming in the dirt.

"My sins are many and my conscience cloudy, Mamban. Nothing will ever lift the weight of stolen lives from my shoulders, but I can at least prevent the start of another war by ending _you_ today..." Susumu charged in for his own assault, ducking a third wave of dribbling acid and raising his arms to strike. His fingers were pointed forward and he delivered a harsh blow to Mamban's right shoulder, hoping to cut off the power of his explosive punches—if Mamban's marks were anything like Susumu's own, then the experimental kekkei genkai would not work without its corresponding mark being active.

"Fool!" Mamban exclaimed as his curse was stricken by Susumu. "I was your partner for _years_...I know how the_ Gentle Fist_ works!" He clenched a fist with his right hand, undeterred by the strike upon his shoulder. A punch connected to Susumu's gut, an explosion on the end of it sending the latter man backward on a jet of soot and smoke, his vest singed by the burst of heat but his body intact beneath.

Susumu crashed to the ground, a thunk sounding through the trees. He had seen the attack coming, but he was unable to react in time to properly divert it. He had still been in the air, still trying to exert his chakra into Mamban's network, but a problem had arisen: "You forced your own chakra outward to counter mine...a temporary defense, but when combined with a counterattack, you can avoid paralysis." Susumu rotated his wrist, limbering up the hand that met more resistance than expected.

"Mm, and you've taken a hit from one of my exploding knuckles. How clever of you to produce a barrier along your stomach at the point of impact—I wasn't aware that you could focus your defense on such a _small scale_." Mamban reeled his right hand back, charging it with considerably more energy than the previous. "But I've already broken one barrier—there's nothing to stop me from breaking another!"

The man in the red mask closed the distance in a flash, his full speed nearly impossible to track, but Susumu's concentration was at its peak—the fist was charged, primed to explode, and Susumu deftly brought his hand up at the last moment to knock the limb away with a pinpoint strike to the wrist. He had hoped to cancel the chakra, but Mamban's network was overloaded too far for Susumu to interfere with. With that diverting strike and a down-right duck of his head, Susumu narrowly avoided the blast that erupted on the end of his opponent's fist.

The explosion was vast and conical, projecting outward and _leveling_ a section of the already-ravaged village into the shape of a pie piece. Neither combatant stopped to marvel at the destruction, already preparing their next moves. Mamban used his other arm, reaching for Susumu's neck but missing contact by an inch, leaving his midsection open to a powerful double-handed strike that sent his overflowing body directly upward, blasting him high into the air above the canopy of lopsided trees.

With both feet firmly planted upon the ground to brace himself, Susumu followed his upward launch with a rapid succession of Vacuum Palms, blasting high-energy air up toward his suspended enemy with grim determination. One, two, three, four, five, six airborne strikes all hitting their target with relentless precision. At the end of the colorless assault, Susumu brought two hands together to form a rapid succession of seals, chakra running wild through his core until it emerged from his mouth as a vast blade of slicing wind aimed to vertically bisect the suspended Mamban.

Mamban had raised his arms to defend against the Vacuum Palm impacts, suffering minimal damage but lifted high into the air. The oncoming blade of whitish-gray opacity was far more dangerous, and so Mamban charged another explosive punch and aimed it to his right, the force of the outward burst sending him into a violent spiral to the opposite direction. It was enough to avoid the cutting air, but it also sent him unpredictably down until he slammed into a row of branches, tearing them to pieces as his body ripped all through the wood. He eventually came to a stop with the lower end of his robe impaled by a snapped outcropping, leaving the madman suspended upside-down a few dozen yards from where he had started. "You're not playing around, are you, Susumu?" he asked aloud, certain that his rival couldn't hear.

Mamban had been followed, but he hadn't realized it until he looked down at his feet and saw the Hyuga standing atop the branch the black robe had been caught on. Mamban tried to wiggle himself free of the suspension, but Susumu clutched the base of the robe and yanked the man inside of it upward to deliver a pointed prick of his fingers to the front of the new, smaller red mask. The hit connected, but Mamban threw a wild, flailing kick that caught Susumu across the jaw and knocked him off balance, throwing him off the branch only to land gracefully on his own feet at the ground level.

Meanwhile, Mamban's landing was harsher, more careless. He fell onto his shoulder and coughed with some measure of pain, reaching up to readjust his mask but snarling viciously when it was revealed to have been snapped in half. As both pieces fell away, Mamban's ugly skin was hit by sunlight and he groaned. "You sniveling _creep_!" Mamban insulted, lashing out with an explosive blast. It was firm, but wildly aimed; Susumu managed to duck himself beneath its trajectory, only scathed by the rushing wind and a single pebble that cut across his cheek, not even deep enough to draw blood. "Stop looking at my _face!_"

Susumu stood back up, reaching to his hip pouch and pulling out a strand of wire that was laced with kunai and paper bombs all neatly arranged together. With a pulse of his curse mark, the fallen Hyuga summoned the individual blades into the air, whirling them around as their volatile tags twisted in the wind behind them. "If it's such a problem, how about you hold still and allow me to get rid of that face _entirely_?"

Mamban was seething with rage. "It's _my face, _you can't _have_ it!" Another angry slash into the air, this time acidic and aimed for the spiraling, stationary kunai. Susumu ducked his body and raised the blades to avoid the careless flinging of acid. Trees fell behind him, cut down the middle by the evaporating layer of wood. "You can't have _my_ face...but I'll take _yours_ as my next _mask_!" Time after time, he shot off a line of acid or an explosion, but Susumu was too agile, and the outdoor air was too open. The explosions lost much of their oomph when they were free to spread about in every direction without resistance.

"You're vile, old friend...and you're _alone_. Cassy and Seshu have _fallen_. What do you have _left_, now?" Susumu spoke through quick breaths, dodging and weaving around Mamban's unrestrained display of power.

"I have _you, _Susumu...I know there's a mark upon your heart, and I want it for myself! And then I'll have Seshu and Cassy's power as well! I _will_ fulfill Lord Orochimaru's intentions and become a _perfect being!_" Mamban realized that his aimless, long-range assault was futile, and so he moved in closer to make it personal.

Susumu was quite surprised to see that his opponent was willing to engage in close combat, especially with the magnetic twirling of kunai in reserve. One by one, Susumu launched the explosive-tagged weapons at Mamban's charging feet, and one by one there were craters formed along the ground that blew dusty shrapnel in all directions. Mamban was caught by two of the five explosions, his legs all but charred away by the burns. Susumu knew better than to count him out, though, even as Mamban writhed in agony along the dirt.

"Tsk...'Lord Orochimaru'. Have you really lost yourself so far, Mamban? He's no _lord. _Notto you, or to me, or to _anyone_. He's a tyrant and torturer; he deserves no _loyalty_ for making us this way. We were _perfect_ before he got his _hands_ on us...now we are, all of us, _broken_." Susumu moved in for the kill, Mamban's lower half almost entirely useless in the wake of the pair of direct explosions. He had barely even tried to avoid them.

"No, no, _no, __**you're the only broken one!**_" Mamban snarled brutally, his mangled, ash-gray face flashing uneven teeth and making a sound like a bird call. The remainder of his bloated platoon of mindless soldiers responded in a flash, forming a line in front of their master and blocking Susumu's approach.

"You know better than to turn such fodder upon me, Mamban..." Susumu said confidently, pulling his hand back with the intention of striking them all down with a single Vacuum Palm. Rather than attack Susumu, however, the called soldiers helped Mamban to his feet and took turns pressing their palms into his chest. As each one did so, they fell into a heap. Susumu was initially confused, but with a closer look using his Byakugan he could see that they were funneling chakra into Mamban's system.

"Yesssss...I know better," Mamban said, shuddering as energy was pumped into him. Susumu tried to get closer, to stop the feeding frenzy, but Mamban snapped the fingers of his right hand and caused a precise explosion in the air between himself and his aggressor, knocking the Hyuga off his stride and onto his back. He didn't stay down, lifting himself up with a backward lunge and sprinting forward again.

_He's becoming too powerful, _Susumu noted, his eyes catching the thin attachment of chakra from Mamban's right hand to the air that exploded. _It's not just a punch anymore; he can cause an explosion anywhere that he can reach with his chakra._ Susumu caught a microscopic tendril lashing toward his chest, but his own hand raised up and ran a Gentle Fist chop through the line. _But it's only chakra; it won't do any good against me if I don't give it time to gather together._

Mamban didn't seem hindered by the failure of his second on-target explosion; truthfully, he seemed pleased with the results. "I don't need to kill you, only _distract_ you, old buddy!" The maniacal vampire's reinforcements were coming from all sides to pump their chakra into him. "These people aren't meant to serve as _soldiers_...they're _batteries! _Each of them has been given a part of my powerful chakra to hold and cherish until the proper moment. Over the course of months, I spent and replenished my chakra dozens of times a day to fill each vessel with _full capacity!_ It was all for the sake of unmatched power...power that is to be used in my final moment...and that moment is _now_. This day is my _death day_; my _coup de grace!_"

"But for _what_, Mamban? You've turned my village into a crater! You've killed, maimed, or enslaved any number of innocent souls...and now you intend to throw it all away on a final insult to the people who've _followed_ you this far? What of Cassy, Mamban? You told me that she was your motive for _everything_, and yet you left her at _my_ mercy." Susumu could do nothing anymore about the transfer of energy. It was complete, and a large mass of bodies clumped up in a ring around their master. Mamban gave a single flick of a finger that blew an opening in the erected ring, the lifeless human shapes tumbling over one another and spreading around.

"For the fun of it, old friend. Power is _fun, _vengeance is _satisfying! _We're all going to die, someday...I've decided that the two of us, and all of the Leaf, will die _today, _on _my terms!" _Mamban raised his left arm, and behind him there formed a swelling, rumbling tidal wave of pure acid. It was a volume that Susumu had never imagined, as if his adversary had summoned an entire ocean to carry in his back pocket and finally released it with a green tint. "You always said we would die together on the battlefield..._let's make that prophecy into reality!_"

Susumu normally wouldn't have been so concerned about the acid—he could deal with it on his own, thanks to his barrier capabilities and speed, but there were others within range of such mass. Most notably, Rika and Akemi were huddled together beside a tree less than a mile away. They should have retreated, Susumu figured, but they were still there and he could see them plainly. If he allowed Mamban's acid wave to travel as it would, it would engulf the pair, and probably extend to the survivors at the training field to top it off.

As the wave began to rise over Mamban's head and curl downward, it crashed into the dirt and caused a shift in a soil, the crackling land sinking aside to fill the gaps created by dissolving terrain. Susumu first dealt with the initial problem of his own preservation, blasting a vertical wave of wind out from his mouth and cutting the tsunami into two halves. As the flow was diverted, Mamban tried to gather it back into place, but found it impossible to bring the two together—Susumu had formed a two-dimensional barrier behind the path of his wind, keeping the waves from finding a clear path to him. With a procession of increasingly-difficult work, Susumu began to form additional barriers of all shapes and sizes along the path of the village, his Byakugan straining as he looked everyplace at once.

Through a sequence of slides, dams, slopes, and walls, Susumu erected a stiff network of indomitable, stand-alone barriers that guided the flow of acid from its starting point to the ocean. It had taken an enormous amount of chakra, but the flow had been redirected away from all of the most crucial parts of the village, the pockets of survivors still brightly shining beacons in Susumu's vision. Once the enormous wave of acid had run its course and emptied into the already-dead waters around the peninsula, Mamban hummed without amusement, his twisted lips curled into a carefree smirk. "Worth a shot..." he murmured, raising his left hand again. "Have another!"

Susumu blanched. Mamban's chakra hadn't even taken a _hit_ after such a display of raw power, but Susumu himself was running on empty even _with_ the strength of his curse mark. His seal was still a fledgeling, really—he had only used the mark a handful of times in his life, and it never achieved level two. Conversely, Mamban's entire _body_ had turned a grayish brown, the curses spreading all over his flesh and refusing to recede. He was falling apart on the inside and out, but Susumu didn't expect that he would simply crumble into dust miraculously within the next few seconds.

Susumu fell down onto his knees, all but giving up as he felt his Byakugan turn inactive for the second time that day. His chakra had been depleted by the dozens of long-range barrier-walls he had been forced to hastily produce. Panting and staring defiantly at the rising secondary wave, Susumu opened his jaw to spitefully surrender. "You've won, then...spare these people; take _me_ as your revenge. _I'm_ the one who left you behind, Mamban! _I_ deserve the weight of your vengeance, not _my people!_"

Mamban giggled with a shake of his head. Without the mask, his eyes looked positively soulless. They were wide, bright with yellow, red, and green colors streaking all through them. One pupil was white with blindness, but he didn't seem to notice the handicap. "Correct, Susumu! You _do_ deserve it the most, but..._all those who live_ must suffer for your betrayal!" Mamban had long since resigned himself to his chaotic nature; there was nothing even _he _could do to stop the ensuing slaughter. It had already been written in his mind. Standing alone on the final page of Mamban's imagined script, the stage show's ending notation was quite clear:

"_There were no survivors."_

* * *

_**Thanks for reading! Next chapter is coming soon!**  
_


	40. Buttered Noodles

**Enjoy!**

* * *

The grassy-green acid storm was still rising, still building; its height seemed endless and its width all the same. Trees vanished as they were touched, Mamban's cruel talons twisting and kneading the air to guide the formation behind his head as it turned to the shape of a breezy curtain. Licks of acid were blown off by the wind, splashing against dirt and lifting steamy brown evaporations into the air. "Well...as they say, Susumu," Mamban sang to rub it in, the shape of his construct no coincidence as it hovered in the air behind him. "It's _curtains_ for you!"

With the gesture of a single overcharged finger, the acid moved in a unified motion to swallow Susumu—but it was intercepted by an equal opposing force of transparent blue. The sound of rushing waves clashed together and foam was strewn in all directions, green and blue vying for superiority until the blue found strength and pushed the relentless acidity back from whence it came. Mamban easily leaped up and over the colossal tidal wave that interfered with his attack, feet landing where they had been once the watered-down globe of his acid was burst into harmless—though perhaps a bit sour—streams of water that flowed downhill.

"I was wondering when you might peek your head out, Kakashi Hatake..." Susumu said from his knees, turning his head to point his overused eyes toward the man who was now standing at his left. "To think there would be a day when I was glad to see you."

Kakashi hummed, a bit wet from his spontaneous blast of watery chakra, but he looked down to Susumu with a hand outstretched. The hand was accepted, and Kakashi helped the weary man rise to his feet. "I've missed a lot, haven't I?" Kakashi asked to the Hyuga.

"More than I can explain in the time we have left, I'm afraid." Susumu dusted himself off, checking his vest pockets. He still had plenty of kunai to spare. "What's important now is that Mamban needs to be stopped, no matter the costs. He aims to bring war to the Leaf."

"Not so long ago, you had the same goal, Susumu!" Mamban called out with a hand covering one half of his cracked face, stifling a laugh. "You know there's still time to pull out your heart, so that you and your power can join me!"

Kakashi moved to step in front of Susumu, lifting his headband and freeing up his Sharingan to take a longer look at his enemy. His vision wasn't as precise as the Byakugan when it came to chakra networks, but he could see the overwhelming amount of power corked up within Mamban's trembling body. "He's like a living bomb...and if he happened to explode with that much power, he'd wipe the Leaf Village off the map..." Kakashi looked over to Susumu, then over his other shoulder toward the rising dust cloud left behind by Guy's victory over Seshu.

"He won't make it out of this forest, Kakashi. It's my duty to keep him contained...I allowed him to become like this." Susumu's curse mark spread a bit further as he tapped into it for more chakra, feeling himself revitalized, but also agitated. "Take your people and get them out of here."

"My mission is still to capture you, Susumu. I'm not going to leave you behind." Kakashi kept his open eye on Mamban, the latter being politely still as the two should-be enemies conversed. "Besides, you can't stop that much power on your own."

"Neither can you," Susumu told to Kakashi without hesitation. "I may not understand the power that you used to tear my barrier open without triggering an explosion, or how you made feet worth of steel vanish to a place unknown...but I do not think it will be enough to stop this madman."

Kakashi shook his head, agreeing with the negativity. "No, you're right—I'm not good enough at using that power to make it work on him when he's still moving. Can you pin him down?"

Susumu huffed, digging into a pouch and tossing up a massive string of kunai. With his Magnet Release, he turned the circular band of laced blades into a single harshly spinning rotor, its rapid rotation blurring the points together until they took on the appearance of a smooth disk. "I'll see what I can do. Back me up, Kakashi!" Susumu made his move, the whirling frisbee behind his head whizzing along behind him as he ran to close the gap between himself and Mamban.

Kakashi took the opposite angle, setting Mamban at the center of a pair of scissors to be flanked from both sides. Susumu opened up with a Vacuum Palm, which Mamban hopped high over. Kakashi leaped into the air, hoping to intercept the falling trajectory of the unwary enemy. With a blue circulation of lightning across his fingers, Kakashi held his Sharingan wide open and left the ground to meet Mamban.

Mamban snapped his right hand, a string of chakra cutting through the air toward Kakashi in hopes of creating an explosive burst. Kakashi caught on a nearby rock with his foot to kick off of and twist himself in the air, spiraling around the blast that rocked the woods. Mamban was almost on the ground—almost in control of his momentum again. The closing window of opportunity nearly slammed shut, but Kakashi made contact with Mamban's chest just as the latter's foot touched the ground. Quickly, Kakashi forced his whole arm through the mangled, vicious snake's heart. His hand came out on the other side, bloodless and shimmering with power. For a moment, Kakashi was confused by the lack of fluid, and he looked to Mamban, whose face had not changed since the hit landed.

"Oh, Kakashi Hatake..." Mamban tsked, reaching his left arm up to grab Kakashi around the throat. "My heart is empty, my veins full of venom, not blood! I'm no longer a man who can be killed..." Mamban squeezed, the crack of Kakashi's neck frustratingly silent as instead of breaking bone, he broke through empty air and a puff of smoke. "A clone. I should have known."

The real Kakashi's hand grasped Mamban's ankle during the split-second confusion, yanking him down and pulling him into the space below, trading positions. As Kakashi emerged from the dirt, Mamban became buried neck-deep and was packed in tight. "Now, Susumu!" Kakashi called out while their mutual enemy was still vulnerable. The steel buzzsaw that the Hyuga had prepared was flung outward with the intentions of decapitating Mamban at ground level, but it never quite reached his exposed neck.

Mamban's power came out in a burst, the earth around his body flinging up in a flurry of chunks full of rocks and roots. Susumu's projectile cut through several rocks along the way, but Mamban's emergence from the earth got him out of harm's way in time to run his arm into the center ring, intercepting the path and turning it toward Kakashi instead. "You two should be fighting _each other!_" Mamban called out with wide eyes and a straining grin.

Kakashi contorted his body in the air, narrowly avoiding the oncoming blade thanks to the insight of his Sharingan. He landed neatly on both feet—Susumu's magnet range was short, indeed. Once metal escaped a certain field of influence, his control over it was totally compromised. "Alright...so conventional capture methods aren't going to work on him." Kakashi got to analyzing again, taking note of the dry gap through Mamban's chest that should have been bleeding, but simply wasn't. "What's more, it seems that Orochimaru altered his body at some point to render typical killing blows meaningless. What can you see, Susumu? Any weak points?"

Susumu, like Kakashi, was studying the enemy and trying to fit the puzzle pieces together. "His entire being is a weak point, Kakashi...but the same thing that makes him weak in the long-term is making him strong for the moment. His body is falling apart on the cellular level as we speak, but there's no telling how long he'll hold together. When he breaks at the seams, I think we'll be dealing with an explosion that will change the landscape quite a bit."

"As long as he's still _here _when it happens, it's an outcome we'll just have to live with." Kakashi answered, looking down to his feet at the scorched earth below. He had seen the typhoon of dust and trees that resulted when the smaller barrier was obliterated by Mamban's punch, but he hadn't known what happened. "Assuming we survive, that is."

"You'll survive, Kakashi. If the need arises, _I_ will be the one to stay behind and keep him here. Mamban is one of my numerous sins; he's the last one that I can truly take back." Susumu was panting, his eyes straining to stay opened. He had used a lot of chakra and taxed his healing capabilities to their upper limit. Every time he moved, he threatened to reopen old wounds and stagger to the ground. Still, he remained standing.

Kakashi was much fresher, but he could see the daunting prospect of battling Mamban in the nutcase's current state. "I've been here long enough to see that he absorbed the curse seals off of his soldiers and took their energy into himself. The process seems to have made him physically formidable and given him near-limitless chakra. On the plus side...draining his troops has removed them from the fight. It's just him and us, now."

Susumu nodded, turning his Byakugan on again and catching the sight of two approaching figures. "More of your friends," he added, and within a few moments, Kakashi was flanked by Guy and Tenzo together.

"Guy, Tenzo; good to see that you've made it." Kakashi said with a nod to each of them, then looked pointedly toward the lone figure with the fist-sized hole through his sternum. "That man over there is Mamban...He's our primary enemy for the time being, so help us take him down. All of us at once. We need to overwhelm him if we can."

Guy gave a nod, spreading his arms out and bending at the knees. "No problem!" He ran in half-cocked, ready to deliver a solid blow to Mamban's already-destabilized chest as he got off his feet and pointed one leg outward for a flying kick. He connected squarely with Mamban's jaw, but the latter didn't even flinch as he took the full force. Reaching his right arm up, Mamban grabbed Guy by the ankle and spun once, flinging the attacker off of him and toward his group of friends. Tenzo quickly rose a softened basket of wood and caught Guy's momentum, gently lowering it to the ground and letting his brow twitch.

"I admire your enthusiasm, but Susumu and I have already tried to take him head-on and it didn't go well." Kakashi helped Guy out of the basket while Tenzo took his turn to distract Mamban with a swarm of narrow, prehensile tree roots that aimed to get him off the ground. Rather than serve as that necessary distraction, the strong cords that wrapped beneath Mamban's robe only made him sigh.

"Not this again!" Mamban shouted, the shrill pierce of his voice cutting into the ears of his adversaries. His right fist was raised and he slammed it into the dirt, aiming to blow the whole area away with a punch, but another root came up to grab him at his wrist, slowing the momentum and turning his fist upward. The blast came off of his knuckles as planned, but it was pointed toward the sky. Despite its change in direction, the force was still great enough to blow the four opposing shinobi back several paces, though they all stayed upright despite a few stumbling skid marks across the ground below.

Mamban sneered, then gave a steamy grunt through his nose as he used raw physical strength to break through the suffocating wooden bindings and shatter them into splinters. "I'm through with this game! I want to take my talents to the _Leaf _again!" He lowered to the ground on all fours, hissing without shame and holding his eyes open wide. He flickered out of sight, his speed untraceable by a normal eye.

Kakashi was the only one who could keep track of the blitzing movement; Susumu's eyes were perceptive, but his own speed wasn't enough to keep up. Kakashi took to the ground, pressing his palms into the dirt and raising a pillar of mud to lift himself and his three allies up and away from the path Mamban was taking. Just in time, their feet were cleared of his assault and they scattered in four different directions as the pillar absorbed the hit and was blown apart. Mamban's howl was inhuman, his posture still on the ground as his tongue writhed along his lips and he made clicking, skittering noises with his teeth.

"I can't tell if he's playing with us, or if his mind is totally lost," Tenzo said from a short distance away to Kakashi. The four-set had been split up, but they were arranged in a square around Mamban's position, tearing his focus in all directions and inspiring indecision. Who did he want to kill the _most? _No decision had ever been harder. He was surrounded by three legends, either sung or unsung, and then his greatest rival and enemy as well. So much to slaughter.

"His mind has been lost for over a decade!" Susumu called out, putting his hands together and sending a blade of wind toward Mamban's hunched, misshapen stature. It was dodged in an instant, and Mamban closed the gap just as quickly to deliver a headbutt to Susumu's face, colliding with his nose and breaking it on impact, sending him away and through a row of trees, ensuring that there would be plenty of timber pre-cut if the village was ever to be rebuilt.

"Susumu!" Kakashi called out, proving to be the only one with concern for the man. "Guy! Tenzo! Find a way to hold him still! I'm going to use Kamui, and I don't want to _miss!_"

"Right!" Guy answered with a two-fingered salute off his forehead. Not long ago, he had opened multiple gates, but the duration was short and his body was still capable of exerting more. _"Fifth Gate—Gate of Closing—Release!" _He roared, the air around him turning hazy and rising high into the sky as the force of Guy's presence pushed it away. As the beast of battle's skin turned a deep crimson, Tenzo began forming signs to back him up.

_"GO!" _Guy pumped himself up, launching off of an eager foot to meet Mamban fist-to-fist. Guy lifted a foot like he was punting a kickball, knocking Mamban's face with the front of his ankle and pushing the tip of his blue shoe into the neck beneath. He felt a solid impact and followed through, looking to propel Mamban into the sky above with wild strength. He was shocked to feel that he had been stopped, however—the impact rattled through the whole core of Mamban, but the force was somehow _matched_ by the deranged chakra battery. Guy felt his power come to an abrupt halt, bouncing back and diving forward to deliver another massive kick. That one, too, was put to a quick end. Mamban's arm rose to take the blunt force, and he was driven back by the impact but not sent flying as he should have been. The pressurized chakra that stuffed all of his limbs was serving as a cushion of armor for his brittle bones beneath, giving him fortitude that was unheard of.

Mamban's violent power allowed him to match Guy's fifth gate blow for blow, the collisions of fists and forearms sending thick tremors all across the land. Where Guy kicked, Mamban blocked, where Mamban tried to deliver a headbutt, Guy's knee was there. They were evenly matched, creating a spectacle that Kakashi and Tenzo were momentarily in awe of. When it seemed like Guy was gaining the upper hand, it was proven to be false hope as Mamban ducked a devastating punch and delivered a twisting kick into Guy's midsection, launching him backward and causing him to tumble head over heels.

Guy ended the roll on his feet, dirty but still poised. He took a deep breath and deepened into a squat with his arms tightly flexed. "Fine! If that won't do..._Sixth Gate—Gate of Joy—Release!_"

The wind howled around his body and he moved to strike again. Catching Mamban under the chin with a kick from below, Guy's arms were bracing his own weight against the dirt to deliver upward force. That time, despite monumental resistance from Mamban's blocking arms, Guy's strength pushed through, and Mamban was caught without the ground at his feet again. Guy's blinding speed followed the snake into the sky. As he was face-to-face with his weightless foe, the taijutsu master grinned with shining teeth. _ Checkmate. _"Asakujaku!"

Suspended in the air, Guy began to rapidly pump his arms back and forth, his fists taking on a speed that surpassed human limitations. As each strike landed upon Mamban's core, the next came with greater swiftness and strength. Five, then a dozen, then a _hundred _hits landed in the span of a single second and the quickness was still ramping higher. Mamban's body was jolted about and flames began to fire off of the tip of every one of Guy's punches. The air heated up and the sky was darkened in comparison to the burning bullets that propelled from Guy's blows. The robe along Mamban's form turned darker and was crispy with smoke by the time the final blow was given and the abused body was sent plummeting toward the earth.

Mamban hit the ground hard, carving out a deep crater for himself and feeling quite stunned at the very bottom of it. Before the malformed evil moved, Tenzo was already there with a shapely cage of wood and earth raised out of the surrounding soil, mixing the construction and thickening it. He thickened it again, then again and again, capturing Mamban behind a solid box of his wood release. Tenzo called over to Kakashi as Guy hit the ground on heavy legs. "Kakashi! Do it _now_!"

_"Kamui!" _Kakashi called out, his eye twisting into shape and ready to impart the killing blow. He was still fairly inexperienced with his own power, but he was familiar enough to know that he was sending things into another dimension—an existence totally separate from the world that many would call 'real.' A space-time technique, one that could be used to either permanently or temporarily transfer objects (or parts of them) into his own pocket dimension. It was the ultimate offense—no matter how powerful the barrier was, or how sturdy the body, Kamui could eliminate it by means of absolute displacement. It was also the safest way to dispose of a time-bomb, much like what Mamban had become.

Mamban was at the center of the wood-and-gravel box. Tenzo was straining to hold him back and the structure was expanding and creaking against the force within. There was a caged animal seeking freedom. The wood began to melt against seeping acid. Tenzo adopted an urgency in his voice: _"Hurry! I can't hold him!" _The black, flower-shaped energy of Kakashi's eye was beginning to feast upon the wood and its inner contents. Kakashi focused hard on keeping the power flowing, but it was still an imperfect technique. A motionless, captured target could still escape given the unpredictability of Kamui's accuracy—it was meant to swallow whatever its user was focusing upon, and yet during practice, Kakashi had occasionally warped away chunks of earth and trees on the far outskirts of his intended target.

_Let it work this time, Obito! _Kakashi thought with determination, feeling the strain on his eye as he tried to shut the enemy away forever. Guy's attack had slowed Mamban down, and Tenzo had been able to hold him in place, and then Kamui found the toxic center of the wooden shell, sucking at it and looking to lock it up in the void. The sound of Mamban's painful cries filled the forest, a hellish noise that could shake the resolve of weaker spirits. Kakashi was strong, however. Tenzo, too. The prison held, and Kamui continued to close its fingers.

Mamban as he knew himself was no more. He emerged from the chrysalis of wood and void and turned down to behold his new form. It was beautiful; lustrous. He sparkled with an otherworldly glow as his hands dragged him free of the pit that had formed beneath him. The sun was kind to him on that afternoon, unlike any afternoon before or any that would come after. He looked to the burning star in the sky and smiled with a tendril of drool coming down the corner of his mouth. His vision began to fade in his one good eye, its reddish-yellow hue turning gray as the pigmentation left the orb and ventured elsewhere in wistful mischief.

Kakashi fell down to his knees, successful in his mission...rather, half successful. Mamban's lower body was gone entirely from slightly above the waist, no legs and no hips at all; he was a floundering fish crawling about on dry land looking for gasps of watery air to sustain itself with. The man who had been so powerful for a brief stint was then looking like a worm. He was quite literally eating dirt as his fang-filled mouth gnashed and his claws dug around on the ground to escape the sinking pit. The problem was no longer Mamban's strength or speed, but the means he had followed to achieve such—the chakra inside of him was leaking out at an extraordinary rate.

The sustained use of Kamui had worn Kakashi out; he was heaving, a single strand of blood trickling loose from deep in the socket framing his Sharingan. He clutched his face and groaned; Guy and Tenzo rushed to his side and took hold of his arms to help him stand. "I didn't get him!" Kakashi lamented, but Tenzo didn't let his partner wallow in the guilt.

"You got enough. We need to get out of here now, though!" With one of Kakashi's arms over his shoulders, Tenzo began to weave an intersecting pattern of wooden barriers, seeking to contain Mamban's wriggling, glowing form. The chakra that had been visible to the Sharingan was spilling into plain view, and even Guy could plainly see the implications.

"He's going to burst!" Guy exclaimed, still weakened, himself, by the use of the sixth gate. "Take Kakashi and get out of range, Tenzo!"

Tenzo nodded, but then looked to Guy's weakly-quivering legs. "I'm going to have to take _you_, too. We don't know what _out of range _even means in this case. I'm going to box him up to contain the blast, but I don't know how well it's going to hold. We _all_ need to get out of here!"

"What about Kaine, Akemi, and Rika? What about Susumu? We have to get _all_ of the survivors out of this place. Let me stand on my own!" Kakashi shrugged Tenzo's hold off of him. He felt sick to his stomach after the exertion, but seeing the growing threat of Mamban's instability was motivating him to find strength.

Mamban himself was laughing, but it was gurgled—the base of his lungs had been clipped off slightly, making it nearly impossible for him to hold air. He hissed and howled, rolling along the ground like a ball stuffed with angry, confused hamsters. All the while, his black robe was burned away to become a glowing blue aura that cracked and snapped with overflowing energy. "You can't...you can't...you _can't stop the show!_" Mamban was wild, not even registering the pain of his own bisection or the futility of his attempted movements. He was blissful, knowing the outcome of his mad quest for power from the moment he took the new arm. His words had disagreed with his thoughts—he told Cassy that he would carry Goda's will into the future, but the future was bleak. His power was fleeting. The world was empty and pointless. Survival was a phenomenon that was not worth pursuing.

Susumu emerged with a gasp from the depths of the trees he had been buried under, his white eyes flexing to activate in another short burst. His chakra had been run down past empty, and without the curse mark his consciousness would have become nothing multiple times. He had blood running down his forehead and through his broken nose; his healing energies had been depleted halfway through fixing the crooked beak. "I'll contain him with a barrier! Protect the others, Kakashi Hatake!"

"That's not going to happen, Susumu!" Kakashi retorted, already moving into action to fetch Akemi and Rika.

"I'm going to do it—you can't stop me from repairing my mistake!" Susumu called back, already weaving the signs. He felt the scorching omnipresence of total fatigue in every muscle, some of the tendons ripped and unresponsive as he had to force his chakra to move the limbs instead.

"I mean that you aren't powerful enough to contain what's coming. Can't you _feel_ how different this is?" Kakashi shouted over the rising currents of hissing and buzzing. Mamban was approaching critical mass. "Look with your eyes and tell me that your barrier can hold up to_ that much energy _being released!"

Susumu took a closer look, and he begrudgingly had to admit that Kakashi was right. In his peak form, he could have possibly created a suitable barrier, but he was far from perfect. He was barely even standing, with a broken nose to testify to his waning strength. "It will be strong enough if I resign to this curse..." Susumu said with a grim frown on his countenance. "If I become as _he_ is, I will be able to contain him. You may not see it, Kakashi," He continued, his eyes strained to look all around. "But there are too many people left to save. This explosion will make the one that preceded it seem like a pebble dropped into a vast lake."

Guy gulped a bit. He had seen the explosion from far away; he wasn't looking forward to facing something even larger. He turned to his rival: "Kakashi...can't you warp the rest of him away?"

Kakashi shook his head. "No, I haven't had enough time to recover. I've used it too much over this month; my eye's not even responding to my chakra anymore—believe me, I've been _trying_."

Susumu saw him coming first, but the others were startled to hear him speak through a rough groan of pain. "I'll handle it...the rest of you get _everyone_ away..." It was Kaine Hamasaki. He was using the wooden sword gifted by Tenzo as a walking stick and leaking blood all along the ruined terrain. "Akemi and Rika are already gathering up some the survivors...I saw them when I was on my way; they watched the whole thing, I'm guessing...and they're going to need help. There are a lot of wounded."

Susumu harshly spoke. "No, Kaine. There's nothing _you _can do about this that _I_ can't! I won't let you become another one of my _regrets!_"

Kaine smirked, a broken tooth on the lower half of his mouth joining up with the rest of his fresh scars. His canines were pinkish with the leaking life essence in his gullet. "I'll use my Storm Release to draw the chakra out of him...I don't think I can _stop_ what's about to happen, but maybe I can make it small enough to give _you guys_ a chance to survive."

Meanwhile, Mamban was growing brighter and the world was shaking as energy came and went. He was a conduit of insurmountable power. It was as if he hadn't stopped at multiplying his chakra by two-hundred times; the earth itself had been sucked dry by the nature of his twin curse marks. "You'll...all...die!" Mamban's half-body managed to bubble from his collapsing throat. "There were no survivors! _There were no survivors!_ _**THERE WERE NO SURVIVORS!**__"_

"Damn it!" Tenzo forced through his clenched jaw. "Kakashi, Guy, Susumu—we need to help Akemi and Rika get the others out of here!" He waved his hand over his shoulder, acting to return to the training field and gather up as many loose bodies as he could. With luck, many of them had regained their consciousness and would be able to escape on their own with the proper warning, but many more of the weaker ones would need personal assistance. It was a tall order for _anyone_; he found himself wishing that Kakashi had brought even more reinforcements than he actually had. Guy was a blessing and had saved his life, but even the most powerful taijutsu user in the world didn't have enough arms to cart the entire population of the scattered Truth Village.

Kakashi and Guy joined Tenzo, weak as they were. Susumu stayed behind—he knew the Leaf shinobi would want to protest, but it was too late for anybody to devote time toward worrying about it. Kakashi gave Susumu one more reluctant glance over his shoulder as he departed, but the Hyuga didn't offer eye contact. He couldn't consciously face the man who had saved them all. _It wasn't just the way he put an end to Mamban's mobility, not just the way he arrived to save me from the acid when I was weak. It was his resolve to keep this child, Kaine Hamasaki, safe from my influence...for no other reason than the belief that he was a shinobi of the Leaf. Just like me...just like Mamban. Perhaps we've all come here as a part of some moment of twisted destiny. Perhaps this is the crucible that will forge our legacies. Susumu Hyuga, the traitor...Kaine Hamasaki, the hero. Mamban, the monster. Kakashi Hatake, the man who gave us all our second chances._

Kaine Hamasaki didn't want to die—in fact, he had only finally discovered what he wanted to _live _for_. _

* * *

_ I didn't ever plan to be a hero, ya know. The decision was just the sort of split-second, no-argument impulse that clicks in a guy's head and tells him to do something dumb and selfless. I'd bet it's the same impulse that makes people like Mamban do the crazy, villainous things they do, too. The only thing that makes us different from each other—all of us crazies—is the stuff that our voices are telling us to do. Makoto's there again, back in my dreams and waking thoughts alike. She's telling me to live, and I'm telling her 'fine, yeah, okay, I'll live for you,' but it's all part of a wreath of empty promises. I don't have a clue how I'd ever expect to live through something like this. That psycho rolling on the ground is about to ruin everything I ever __**thought**__ I was fighting for. _

_ Damn, I know I look like a total mess, too. I swear I swallowed a couple of teeth on the way over here. This isn't how I would have chosen to look during a final, heroic stand. I know for sure I'm never going to get the taste of blood out of my mouth. Through my life, I've tasted all kinds of it; my blood, Akemi's blood, the blood of guys I never met before I killed them—I've even tasted a little bit of Susumu's blood as of a couple of hours ago. I hate the flavor, the consistency, all the parts that make it what it is. I don't ever __**want**__ to taste it, but it just splashes into my mouth sometimes. That old adage about soldiers with a 'thirst for blood' always made me cringe, because I'd picture some guy in full battle gear ordering a pint of blood from a tavern or something, then chugging it down and asking for seconds._

_ Who'd have imagined I'd turn out to be one of the people who'd fit that tired old phrase, though? I hate blood but I always __**loved**__ killing. It made me feel like I had some kind of control over the world I had been forced to live in, get me? I was a kid with nothing. I'd walk, I'd eat, I'd pass out, I'd cry and maybe I'd even crap myself, but I only had one pair of pants and I couldn't just go around naked so I had to live with it, just in case I ran into somebody who could help me. 'No, don't help that __**naked kid,**__' I imagine they'd have said. Well, I don't know...I did used to wash my clothes when I found a stream that wasn't too muddy or bloody. Cleanliness didn't do much for the pain, though._

_ The pain didn't stop until I found the 'truth,' and up until I met Kakashi and Tenzo I didn't even realize that the pain all __**started**__ with Danzo Shimura. Oh, how I wish I could survive this to give him a broken jaw; maybe I'd like to get a taste of __**his **__blood, too. He's the one responsible for all of it. Kakashi told me about Susumu's old buddies, all the experiments and curses...he told me about that kid, Sasuke Uchiha, too. Said something about how he ran off with Orochimaru because of the same kind of mark that Mamban and Susumu have. Sounds to me like the 'curse mark' is just a convenient excuse to do bad things, but then I look at the cruel things __**I've**__ done and I wonder: well, what's __**my**__ excuse?_

_ And while I dwell on my evils, here I am in the present day with my hands held together, power rising from all the nooks and crannies of my busted up self. Mamban's rolling around and screaming nonsense; for some reason, Susumu didn't go with the others. Noble idiot, but whatever, I'm the same thing. So am I doing it for redemption? Nah, that's not even close. Truth be told, I'm doing it for her. Makoto Mori, that girl with the brown eyes and the scruffy hair; something about her has just been leeching in my __**brain**__ since I first caught that short glimpse in the crowd. She was walking around like a little mouse that was afraid of being noticed, so I kinda teased her—what I did was I __**noticed**__ her, just to surprise her. I called her up, told her about how pretty I thought her eyes were, then asked her to come with me to the Village Hidden by Truth. She said she absolutely couldn't, and for a minute or two, I didn't think much of her—honestly, I was ready to brush her off and go to the next one, but she smiled and blushed and said 'thanks for asking,' and I felt a tiny rock ping against the bottom of my heart._

_ Oh man, I knew I was in __**big**__ trouble the second I tried to talk to her and couldn't figure out what I was trying to say. She looked at me all sweet and tipped her toes in the dirt, lifting up and falling down, and jiggling a little bit with her kind-of-unfit body. Her sister, though. Rika. That was a woman in peak form, lustrous hair and crisp eyes that weren't as opaque as Makoto's. I gather that she made a lot of guys yearn for her every time she flipped her curls. Not me, though. Maybe I'm broken, but she just wasn't my type._

_ Rika opted to come with me, though. Makoto told her not to go, and she looked pretty serious about it, but we compromised. I told the younger sister that I'd come back to check messages every chance I got. She smiled and leaned up and whispered to me, telling me about the tree she used to climb with Rika when they were tykes. It sounded good to me. Normally, I wouldn't have made such an exception, but that eager little thing had her hooks in deep. I couldn't wait to see her again. Akemi teased me about it when I got back to the village and told her about what happened. You know, I'm pretty sure Akemi only talked to Rika in the first place because she was digging for dirt about my 'girlfriend.' I hope the two of them are thankful that I'm such a sucker; at least __**they**__ get to live happily ever after, right? I want to see Makoto and tell her sorry. Sorry that I broke my promise to come back._

_ Gah, but I can't be thinking about her right now. She's a distraction, even if she's also my sole driving force. The way Kakashi and Susumu are talking—hell, even the way it looks to me—is that this asshole's going to blow up, and the blast might reach far enough to destroy what's left of Monolith Point itself. Sounds hard to believe, but I've heard stories of a volcano that erupted and ruined an entire country, you know? The whole nation, no matter how far away it was from the source, got covered in soot. The trees and bushes and birds all died because there was no sunlight on them. Common sense is that there's nothing to eat when you've got no plants. 'Just eat fish,' right? Well, that's what Susumu thought—but the ocean water around the Truth Village is full of something that was probably like volcano soot, too. We don't get fish, here._

_ I don't know exactly what kind of discarded excrement ended up on the shores, but it was disgusting. Susumu—Minoru at the time, I guess—took me out to show me what war could do to the environment, and I guess he meant for me to see blood or guts or explosive powder, but I was a timid kid for a while, and I didn't look at it when he told me to. I lied to him and told him I saw it, and he told me that he knew I was lying but he let me walk away anyhow. I don't know how much Susumu knew about all the things I had seen. I've met lots of bodies; I've used dead people as roofs and beds when the need struck. Rain didn't take a vacation just because a kid was cold and tired, and when the trees are burned to a crisp and there's nowhere else to hide from the enemy soldiers, a pile of corpses doesn't seem like so bad of a choice._

_ No matter how often I try to think back, I can't see the face of the person who killed me for their final exam. I remember Danzo's face—now that I'm starting to remember things, I saw Danzo a __**lot**__ during my visits to the Leaf. I always thought I was serving as Minoru's eyes and ears, that I was so damn __**slick**__, but Danzo saw right through me. He knew more about me than __**I**__ did. He knew my name, my chakra nature; he even knew I hated the taste of buttered noodles, but I hadn't even __**eaten**__ buttered noodles before as far as I recalled. One night, when I didn't know I was going to have a genjutsu placed upon me to wipe my memories, I tried some of those noodles—and damn it all, I honestly hated the taste. _

_ My hatred of those noodles made me wonder if I only hated them because Danzo told me I did, or if I just naturally hated them; either way it really damaged my sense of freedom. The things that happened while I was accidentally playing into Danzo's hands all seem like a messy blur to me right now, but I remember feeling like I wanted to have control again. Control over myself, control over others. That's why I loved to kill. It gave me control. I had the power to tell a man or a woman to go to sleep and never wake up again. They'd say 'no,' but I'd never give them mercy. I got to make a difference._

_ This all happened long after I met Minoru, too. I was part of Root's training program as a little kid, and then I 'died,'—but not really—and __**then**__ I was the orphan I always remembered being. When I was still suppressed, I occasionally remembered little bits and pieces of life before my failure. Pencils on paper, the feel of a kunai in my hand, the code languages of Root and the Anbu. It all clicked nice and easy to the point that I was able to fend for myself when bandits hit me on the road, but some of the specifics __**still**__ escape me._

_ When I was on my own, I think I built a sort of a reputation for being a tough kid. 'Terrible toddler,' I think was one of my aliases when I finally showed up on Minoru's doorstep. Along the way, I had been hired by a few bastards here and there to be a petty thief; sometimes I'd even do assassination work. I did what it took to live, nothing else. Sadly for me, a lot of those guys who hired me wouldn't pay me enough to actually help me live. They'd see that I got the work done, then they'd boot me out the door with a half-a-loaf of overcooked bread and a handful of water. Starving kids are such suckers, right?_

_ It changed when I met Minoru, that magnificent man of honor and integrity. His generosity was so __**real**__...and on top of that, he was followed around by a really cute girl only a little older than I was. That was Akemi Yamaguchi; she was a brat, but so was I, and we got into a lot of little sissy fights growing up. When I broke the first chair she ever built for herself, I did it on purpose. I don't remember what she did to piss me off, but I wanted to make her feel the way I was feeling, and that thirst for revenge drove me to do something pretty dumb. I was better at building things than she was; always had been. Probably another secret part of Root training—'know how to make a proper table, your life depends on it'—but either way, I could see where it was weak, so I sat on it to 'try it out', and I hit it with my butt at just the right angle to snap one of the legs off._

_ She got so mad! I put on my best 'pity me' face, the one I used to beg with, but __**damn**__ did she see through it quick. To say that I got a couple of lumps on my head is true, but also an understatement. She might not even remember how wild she got, but she took the broken chair leg and knocked me halfway into a coma with it. The beating didn't stop me from acting like a jerk, but instead it taught me that I could do anything I wanted just so long as I was willing to take a licking for it. Nothing had ever killed me before, so why should I fear death?_

_ Candidly, since I'm probably about to die, I'm actually pretty terrified. My Storm Release is good at sucking chakra, but that little snake is crawling around with a __**lot**__ of chakra. Mamban; that's the slimy-feeling name of the guy who murdered an entire village, burned it to the ground, and framed the Truth for it. The guy Susumu allied with, the guy Kakashi couldn't kill. The guy who's going to cause __**my**__ death today. I'm supposed to be a survivor, so why am I throwing myself into the flames when Susumu, Kakashi, Tenzo, or that weird-eyebrow guy could do it instead? I'll tell you what, I'm really starting to question the sanity of my choices here._

_ The clouds are on him now, surrounding him. Maybe it's because I'm spiteful with a blatant flair for the ironic, but I'm wrapping the blackness around him like a snake constricting a rat. I feel him slowing down; I feel myself pulsing with power. Since I'm still being honest, I can also tell you that my body hurts more, now, than it ever has. I've been injured before, but not like this—not like I'm ready to die and pushing myself to the absolute limit, and then doubling it. I think I ran out of chakra a long time ago, but I keep pumping more of it from somewhere. _

_ Mamban's losing steam, but me too; Susumu's just standing there, looking at me with this placid grin on his face like he thinks he's my proud father or something. His bloody and broken nose makes him look like a clown. He raised me, I'll give him that, but he's done terrible things—I told him a while ago that I forgave him, and I do, but that doesn't mean I want him looking at me like I've finally 'earned his approval.' It makes me angry to see it, but that's okay. Anger makes a guy like me feel a lot stronger. _

_ Mamban's bright light is finally getting dimmer, but my time is up. I sucked all the energy I could from him. My obedient clouds are fat and happy; they're waiting for me to tell them to blow Mamban to smithereens. They must be so disappointed, because I'm dispelling them without letting them burst. I know what it feels like to be a thing with one purpose, only to have it denied, then replaced with the opposite. I'm that person; my purpose was always to kill, to survive, to be the brat with the big mouth. Now I'm quiet, and I'm throwing my life away to save a bunch of strangers and maybe a __**handful**__ of people I care about. _

_ Earlier, Cassy asked me when I turned so thoughtful, and I blamed Tenzo and Kakashi. They're just so damned __**kind**__, and I don't know how to put it any other way. Their goodness is so awkward to be around in a world like this, and I can't help but feel like I should be more like them. More like that Naruto kid that Kakashi was telling me about, too. I wonder what it would have been like to meet that kid. He sounds like the opposite of who I was._

_ My chakra's gone, my clouds are gone, and Mamban's still going to blow. With nothing left to lose, I finally look over to Susumu and smile like I had just beaten him in chess. "You know," I said, "you don't have to sacrifice yourself just because __**I'm**__ doing it."_

_ He looked at me with a sternly raised brow, like he thought I was crazy. "Rest assured, Kaine Hamasaki," he answered with that smoothness, that insufferable warmth. Thinking about it, his voice reminds me of those buttered noodles I hate. We're both about to die, though, so I let him talk without telling him how much I wish he'd just act like a spoiled brat for once—more like Mamban. It'd be fun to see Susumu rolling around, laughing his ass off like a hyena. He didn't do that, though. In fact, he repeated himself with a sterner look and a depth in his voice that made me want to listen to every word, no matter how much I hated the sound of it._

_ "Rest assured, Kaine Hamasaki, that I'm __**not**__ sacrificing my life here." That was all he said, and then Mamban's severed upper body bloated like a rubber balloon that was too full of water, the core getting fatter and skin getting thinner while it was stretching out. Holes ripped open along him, but blood didn't come out—just white lights. He was about to blow, and Susumu and I were each too nearby to have any hope of fleeing from the results. Rather than die running and exhausted, I said to myself a silent prayer, a desperate final wish: 'Please, Kakashi. Save everyone who I couldn't.' _

_ I had managed to drain a lot of the cackling bomb's chakra; because of the amount, I know that I weakened the oncoming explosion with absolute certainty. That said, there was still too much power left, and the finality of death was in front of me. I had never killed without feeling it; I __**do**__ know that a person can't wake up from being a cold hunk of empty flesh. I've felt remorse plenty of times, but it was always a detached remorse. It was always someone __**else**__ who died. This time, it was going to be me. I forced myself to stop thinking about unimportant things like how much it would hurt, or whether I'd end up in some twisted hell or blissful heaven. Instead, I finally got to that point where it didn't __**matter**__ if I was distracted or not. I resolved to make my final thoughts about my sister, Akemi. And Rika, too. Most of all, though, I imagined Makoto Mori's hand in mine, her eyes looking right at me. _

_ In my fevered dream world, with my real eyes closed and my body giving out, she whispered a single word, a word that cut into my numbed senses and crashed like a gong despite how simple and sweet it sounded: "Survive."_

_ I had decided long ago that Makoto was worth living for. Cruel, then, that the things most worth living for also happen to be the things most worth __**dying**__ for._

_ As I thought of her, the laughing balloon on the ground finally popped._

* * *

**The next one, as always, will be up very soon.**


	41. The Road Leading Home

**Enjoy!**

* * *

The rumble could be felt through the earth, then the air. The sight of the explosion was initially blocked by dense layers of trees, but those trees were quickly torn from their hundred-year foundations and turned onto their sides, then subsequently vaporized. The fiery pillar was several colors; pink, orange, yellow, white, blue, and even a few dabs of black as ash rose within. Five Leaf shinobi escaped with the entirety of the life mass of Monolith Point.

Tenzo had created a basket woven of wood, larger than a house and just as accommodating. Guy's strength came in handy as the unconscious bodies were tossed within the vessel and carried upon his shoulders, little care given for their comfort as the clock ticked down. The earth shook before and after the explosion hit, and the group had achieved a distance of nearly three miles by the time the critical mass turned its energy outward in a cataclysmic event. With the basket dropped onto the ground and the time finally up, Kakashi and Tenzo joined together in creating an enormous shell of wood and earth around a shallow valley. They were flanked by hard rock and dense trees, their defensive techniques layered a dozen times over before they dove to the ground and covered their heads behind the thirty foot wall, thick and high.

Rika and Akemi were there, too; they had been helping to gather up the unconscious and unfit despite Akemi's broken shoulder, and they followed the order to withdraw when Kakashi gave it to run as a unit. A few people had already been dead, with nothing left to be done for them, and they were regrettably left behind. Being a ninja often meant making difficult decisions. The wave of force reached them where they had stopped, and it probably would have reached them no matter how far they had run. The air became sharp and vicious, the wind howling to deafen the pocket of life that endured the ferocious wave of destruction.

The valley crumbled, and so did the layers of defense. The earth and wood initially held valiantly, but eventually cracked and splintered, falling apart inch by inch until there was nothing left between the survivors and the final gasp of a madman. Mamban's body had become a torrential outpour of chakra that was all the more damaging due to the dual curse marks that continuously fed on the natural energy of their surroundings. As earth fell in on all sides and the barriers became additional weight that tried to bury the group, Kakashi and Tenzo continued to build upon the layers. Their shelter hadn't been far enough to reach safety, but to risk running further was to risk being swallowed by the encroaching hunger mid-stride.

Eventually, the shuddering earth settled into place. The valley had served as some protection from the shockwave itself, which dealt most of the damage, but their risen barricade had collapsed quite readily in all directions, leaving behind a smooth surface of naked dirt. When the calamity was over, Tenzo was the one to emerge first as a single fist punching through the rocky ground, weaving a sign to lift the rest of his companions free of the packed density. One last layer, nearly paper-thin, was all the wood that still supported their defense. Had the explosion been any stronger, or lasted any longer, they would likely have all been swallowed up by the heat.

The basket was still full of survivors. Guy had carried them thus far without breaking a sweat, it seemed, but when he came out of the rubble covered in dirt with his hair disheveled, he seemed like he had taken a beating. Even so, when he stood on his own two feet and flashed a smile, his teeth still sparkled. He was the first one to talk: "Nice job!" he praised, giving a two-breathed chuckle toward Tenzo and then turning to face Kakashi. All of the five conscious shinobi had escaped, and dozens more were gathered in Tenzo's carrying case, a few writhing and coughing and piled up on top of one another.

Kakashi heaved a sigh, running his hand through the dirty white hair atop his head. "That was pretty close," he said, wiping a stream of blood from the base of his left eye, looking to the redness on his fingertips through blurry vision. _We're almost there, Obito...we just need more practice, right? _He thought, then raised his hand to drop his headband over his wounded, overtaxed eye. When his vision came into clearer focus and he acknowledged that his remaining team still breathed, he looked out to the wider range of the world. He could see flat dirt in all directions for a few miles further. "Just what kind of power is Orochimaru wielding with these curse marks of his?"

"Well, we can be glad knowing that five more of the marks are gone from the planet, right?" Tenzo mentioned, patting himself down to clean some of the dry clay from his black undershirt. His vest had been frozen and destroyed, so he looked like a solid pillar of black and brown, topped with a silver-framed face and deep black eyes that had regrets like any other. "There's no way he survived, is there, Kakashi?" he asked toward his partner.

"It doesn't seem likely that _either_ of them lived," Kakashi said with a droopiness to his eyelid, his shoulders slumped and arms hanging in defeat. There were no trees in sight, and looking in the direction of the Truth Village gave insight to the gentle slope that made the grade of a gargantuan crater. The land would heal, in time, but the village and the bodies left behind were most certainly gone forever. Kaine Hamasaki and Susumu Hyuga were most likely among them as nothing more than memories. "Kaine's efforts to drain some of that chakra probably made a difference, but even so, it was _still_ so powerful that we barely escaped with our skin."

Guy, half-oblivious to the details, looked to Kakashi with a stern brow. "Then he _saved_ us, right? And we had no other choice but to leave him back there while he did it?"

Kakashi was looking over to Akemi. She had been silent since she realized that Kaine wasn't with them, and Rika was trying to console her with a firm backrub, careful of the tender flesh and bone near the shattered and limp shoulder. Kakashi hummed, looking upward. Again, the clouds had been pushed back. He hadn't seen a clearer day in all his life. "He was willing to give himself up for the rest of us; whether there _was_ another choice for us, or not, the choice he_ made_ was solely _his_. We could have argued about it, maybe forced him to come along, but even as things are now, we barely escaped. While it may not feel like the _best_ choice, it was certainly a _correct_ choice."

Tenzo nodded. "Yeah, you're right. Let's head to Monolith Point and make sure that _it's_ still standing...well, that _some_ of it is, at any rate." Thinking about Mamban, Tenzo shuddered a bit. That was the end result of Orochimaru's ambitions; the mindless slaughter and aimless chaos. "That psychopath didn't really _care_ who he hurt, did he?"

Kakashi shook his head. "No, he didn't. Toward the end, I don't think he even recognized that he was a part of _reality_ anymore. Susumu told me that the two of them were friends, long ago—and that he always thought that they would die together. I suppose they did, after all."

Guy was already hoisting up the enormous wooden bowl that carried the lump of survivors from the Truth Village. Medo Shuria was at the very top, regaining consciousness slowly but surely as the whole bunch was carried along.

* * *

In Monolith Point, the shockwave had been felt, but its impact had dissipated considerably after traveling so many extra miles. It was stronger than the one that came about when the Truth Village's elevation had been lowered by a few feet, but still not strong enough to knock over the sturdy structures that remained. Kakashi, Tenzo, Akemi, Rika, and Kaine had only been gone for a few hours overall, but Makoto had been nervously awaiting their return since they left, and it had felt like days.

When she caught the first glimpses of men in green vests coming up, she threw open the door of the inn and ran out to greet them. Guy found a dry clump of land to set the bulky cup down, unloading person after person until they were arranged in neat rows along the mud. "Take care of these people, young lady!" Guy said with his usual cheery attitude to Makoto as she approached from the tavern, then he looked to Kakashi one more time. "I think our work is done here, don't you?"

Kakashi nodded, closing his eye and rubbing his hand across the cloth of his headband to soothe a smarting headache over his left temple. "Yeah, I think that'll be all. You should get back to your team, now."

Guy gave a smirk and a nod. "Hmph. Expect me to challenge you to a duel the next time we cross paths, Kakashi." With that, he pointed to the sky and howled a passionate extolling of youth before sprinting off in a direction that may or may not have been the right one to reach his team. Kakashi had started to say farewell, but the fiery beast of battle had already become little more than a trail of rising dust in the air.

Makoto was quiet, her eyes scanning over the survivors and looking for the telling shock of blue hair that would have belonged to Kaine. Just as tears started to well up and she opened her mouth to ask about him, she was swallowed up by a pair of white arms and a sea of black curls. Rika turned her sister's head down to cradle her against her chest, whispering softly. "Sorry, little 'koto," she cooed, touching her nose to the shorter sibling's bonnet.

Makoto's heart sank. She didn't _want_ an apology. Apologies were part of her _nightmares_. And apology said _'Sorry, but it's over. Just like that, nothing is ever going to be the same again.'_ Monolith Point's destruction had been a trauma, certainly, but the _people_ had endured. The town wasn't gone, only _different_. The pools of watered-down acid had already been evaporating and some of the more restless townsfolk had started chopping trees to begin rebuilding. "No, Rika," Makoto said through a swollen throat. "That's not how this ends..." she said, her voice rapidly losing strength. "_He promised he'd come back._"

Rika dropped to her knees to follow the collapsing Makoto, the sisters holding one another tightly. Akemi was off to the side, looking over to her busted shoulder and keeping her eyes clear. She had felt the mild desire to cry, but she didn't do it. Instead, she walked over to where the two siblings were cradling one another, and she knelt at Makoto's side to set her own still-working hand on the sloped shoulder not occupied by Rika's soothing chin.

"He made his choice to protect us all, Makoto. He was a _shinobi_, like your sister and me; he was a brat, but in the end he knew what it meant to be _strong_." Akemi gulped, swallowing a lump in her throat. She didn't want to shed any tears, not in front of Kakashi and Tenzo. She felt the need to be the tough girl of the bunch, rather than just another stream of tears. Rika wasn't so modest, looking pretty broken up; that was mostly because her sister was so devastated. It was hard to see the suffering of a loved one without feeling some of it yourself, after all. That was why Akemi had to look to the dirt. She couldn't stand to feel the pain that Rika's tear-stained face caused her in that moment.

Kakashi and Tenzo stood off to the side, giving the trio a moment alone as they moved toward the dwindling treeline. Stumps littered the ground and sawdust was blowing in the wind, remnants of the reconstruction project that was postponed by lunch time. "Kakashi...there was nothing more you could have done. I know you're not going to show it, but I can tell that you're blaming yourself in there."

Kakashi answered with a quiet stare, his eye calm and dark. The mask hid his emotions but Tenzo could see through him; they were friends. At times, the Sharingan legend had even come close to seeing the wood-user as a brother. Not a word was spoken after that, between them. It was all understood. Kaine Hamasaki was another person toward whom Kakashi felt like a failure; so many were saved, most of them innocent, but the disobedient hothead with trust issues had been a special case—Kakashi had wanted to save _him_ above all else.

Though, in looking back, Kakashi _did_ have to admit that there was a clarity in Kaine's eyes when the decision was made. At last, they weren't the eyes of a scared child, or of a selfish, lonely killer—they were eyes that burned with the Will of Fire. Kaine Hamasaki made his choice to die, and he did it with a clear heart and mind. His life may have ended, but it ended for the sake of something and someone that he wanted to _protect_.

* * *

…

…

…

…

**Three Days Later**

_Another dream. The dreams were supposed to have stopped when death came, but they were infinitely nagging. Was he a spirit? He didn't know, but it was starting to piss him off when he kept hearing and seeing what __**could**__ have been. "Survive, Kaine," Makoto whispered into his ear with inviting breaths brushing along his lobe and neck. He wasn't a child, anymore; his dreams were set in the present. Makoto was there in full form and her hands were clutching a bowl of hot stew. Little tendrils of aromatic, enticing steam licked at the base of his nose and made his skin wet with the humidity. He wanted a taste. He may not have been a kid anymore, but he was still starving. So hungry. "Survive, Kaine...You still have a __**purpose**__, and that purpose is for you to come __**home!**__"_

Kaine awoke with a start, thrashing his arms up to protect his face from the incoming explosion, but he saw no such thing. In fact, he saw nothing at all—darkness was all there was. _This is it, isn't it? I'm in hell, now. It's colder than I would have expected it to be..._ he speculated, but then he realized that his arms hadn't raised when he wanted them to. In fact, his entire body hurt like hell and that hadn't seemed right if he was supposed to have been dead. Devoting himself to wriggling around, clawing his fingers wherever he could reach, he came to the notion that he was buried underground. _That can't be right. I __**couldn't**__ have lived._

He felt foot after foot of mud give way to his gnashing hands and feet, his head shaking beneath it all to wriggle his way upward. He could tell by the weight of gravity that he was moving in the right direction, climbing gradually out of whatever pit he had been buried in. When he hit the surface of the dirt, his hands grasping for any solid hold he could find, he rasped a mighty gasp as if he had just been resurrected. In a sense, he felt like he _had_ been. The sun felt incredible when it warmed the surface of his skin. Most of the fabric had been blown away from his arms and legs, his vest turned to tatters and gone.

He ran his fingers up and down his body to check for holes; there were numerous ones, but he wasn't bleeding anymore. Time must have passed. He looked around and saw nothing—nothing, aside from the rising slope of a massive crater and the slow trickle of water that tried to find its way to the ocean. The stream was undeterred; the land hadn't been taken, merely reshaped by the suicidal maniac named Mamban. For what it was worth, _he_ could no longer hurt anybody.

Still, Kaine didn't have a clue _how_ he had managed to live through such utter obliteration. He looked down at both hands, but his vision was blurred beyond belief. He was surprised in retrospect that he could even tell that the water was still flowing. He wondered if that mammoth crater would eventually turn into a lake; the village was already near the ocean. Would it simply become a submerged memorial to nothing? He started to walk. He did as Makoto said, and started to go _home_.

"Kaine Hamasaki," a voice said from beside him. He turned to regard the words, absolutely shocked to hear such a close, pointed sound. He hadn't seen anyone.

"What's this...?" Kaine asked, looking around until turning his eyes to the dirt at his feet. Similar to himself, another figure popped free of the dirt and climbed clumsily out of its entombment. "There's no way in hell," he said, then gave a pained huff of laughter.

"I told you...that I was _not_ sacrificing my life. For once, it wasn't a lie." Susumu said up to his student, reaching a hand upward and asking for help wordlessly. Kaine clutched the man's palm and yanked him up from the ground to help him to stand. "Now that we're awake...I think it's time for you to return to where you belong, isn't it?"

Kaine shook his head, realizing there were a dozen or more pebbles tied up in his locks. "Wait...no, this is impossible, Susumu. Before I go anywhere, you're going to have to tell me what happened..."

Susumu smirked, looking down at his arms. His own clothes had been burned away much like Kaine's, though he was still modest. His arms were exposed to the shoulder, however, rather than being wrapped with black cloth. His curse mark had expanded beyond its previous limit by several inches. "I used all of the power I could summon to construct a barrier around the two of us. The smaller it is, the stronger I can make it. I couldn't have stopped the entirety of the explosion, no...but I could stop a small section of its force for just enough time to spare our two precious lives. Needless to say, the barrier didn't hold forever, and we were still knocked out and buried...but survival was the goal, not perfection."

Kaine chuckled; it hurt more than anything to laugh. Even despite the pain, though, he laughed and laughed, falling onto his side and rolling to his back. "You're a _bastard_, Susumu Hyuga. You couldn't tell me that _before_ he blew?"

"I didn't want to ruin your _moment_. I could see the determination in your eyes when you thought it was the end; you faced your own death without flinching, but it wasn't due to your usual brashness. You have truly become strong." Susumu reached down to pat Kaine on the shoulder. "And I wish I could the credit, but I cannot. The Leaf is what helped you—Kakashi Hatake, the man called Tenzo, and the Will of Fire which they infected you with. I used to have that very same will inside _me_."

"But not anymore?" Kaine asked ponderously.

"It was stifled for many years, but being around you, and Kakashi...it is certainly contagious, isn't it? I think it may have _rekindled_, somewhat." Susumu had a hearty smile, cheeks pushed back and dimpled. "It has been about three days. It's possible that they've already had a funeral for you. Do you suppose it's time to go back to that girl you love?"

Kaine moved to stand up again. He wasn't wobbling anymore. "Yeah...I think it's _definitely_ time to go home. Are you coming, too?"

Susumu nodded. "I have crimes to pay for, Kaine. I hid from the evils I did by calling myself something else—Minoru was the monster, not Susumu, I had said. But it was a lie; the _worst_ kind of lie. The kind of lie that I told to _myself_."

"They might execute you," Kaine replied, as if in an effort to dissuade his newly-reformed teacher from walking into certain doom. "You could just disappear. I could tell Kakashi that you died while saving me."

Susumu shook his head. "It's kind of you to offer, but I won't have you telling any more lies on my behalf. It's time that I faced the truth of my actions at long last. My village is gone, but with my Byakugan, I saw that Kakashi Hatake, Tenzo, Might Guy, Rika Mori, and Akemi Yamaguchi saved many of our people. The buildings are gone, but the _people_ remain. I still want you to lead them, Kaine, if they will have you."

Kaine scoffed, turning his head aside and crossing his arms. "Not much of a leader...besides, I have my _own_ goal in mind."

"Yes, of course you do," Susumu said knowingly. "Regardless, let us return to our people."

Kaine gave a nod, eager to begin walking. The pair headed west, though injuries and fatigue made them slow.

* * *

Despite there having been so many more people in town, with most of the Truth Village members having regained their consciousness, Makoto was in no mood to make stew. Two more days had passed, five in all, and the loss of Kaine still stung her to the core. She told herself to get over it; _you barely knew him anyway,_ she thought to try to self-reprimand her childish notions of love. She wanted to believe that it was destiny; no, she was absolutely _certain_ that it was, and his apparent death had changed nothing despite her attempts to force herself to admit that it was a mistake to believe in it. She moped around in her room for both days that had since passed, despite urgings from her sister and Akemi to leave and get some fresh air.

The scene was the same as the two afternoons before it. Rika was politely knocking on the door, but Akemi came in afterward to pound upon it more restlessly with her healthy arm. The broken shoulder was slung and braced with a cast. "Get over it, Makoto! He was a _hero_, right? Be _proud_ of that, and get out there to be sure that his sacrifice was _worth_ making! He did it for _you_, you know? He wouldn't want you to be a sad-sack just for _his_ sake!"

Makoto turned over in bed, muffling her ears with both halves of her pillow. The sheets were normally comfortable, but in her state of mind they were just irritating. Aki's voice was annoying, too, even though it _shouldn't_ have been. The knocking continued for a while, and so did the shouting, but the stubborn young girl who was curled up in bed at two o' clock in the afternoon was trying her best to ignore it. Suddenly, sooner than usual, the knocking stopped and the voices went quiet. Makoto thought she heard a gasp. Another knock came a few seconds later. Around the same time, a large bird that was vaguely familiar started pecking at Makoto's window. It was too much to ignore, and she was about to scream for everybody to _shut up_, but then someone spoke:

"Makoto...could you open the door for a second...?" the male voice asked, weak but a welcome sound. Makoto felt her eyes getting wet again, but she rubbed them dry with her crumpled sheets and got out of bed to step into the light of her window. She opened the door and peeked out, seeing a hot mess with one eye—a hot mess that couldn't have _possibly_ been more pleasing to behold than it was in that moment.

"I _knew_ it..." Makoto whispered with a dead, neutral expression. She couldn't hold it for long; Akemi and Rika were both standing in wide-eyed silence with hands over each other's mouths to stop one another from ruining the moment. "Kaine Hamasaki, in the flesh," Makoto said with a rapidly-growing smile and quickening heartbeat. "Do you...want some stew...?"

Kaine was dirty and covered in his own dried blood, but he wasn't going to wait another second to see her. "Yeah...I'd like that more than almost anything in the world."

Makoto gave a nod, trying not to get too emotional but failing miserably as tears started to flow unabated and her whole body launched past the door to embrace Kaine around the waist and shoulders. She squeezed tight, and although the wounds in his body hurt all the more for it, the grimy ninja didn't even make a peep in protest. In the past, he had definitely endured worse pain for less pleasure. "_Almost_ anything?" Makoto whispered into his ear.

"_Almost_," Kaine whispered back. He wanted to kiss her, to spend three straight days with the girl in his arms, and a bottomless supply of her homemade stew in a bowl in front of him, but he still had reservations. He felt welcome, and he felt loved, but he didn't know if it was the right time to make it _real_.

Makoto solved his dilemma by being the one to kiss him first, reaching her lips up to his mouth without any kind of hesitation. It was short and sweet, not intensely passionate or suggestive. A tender touch, one just barely long enough to share the flavor of one another before she pulled back with a thick, apple-red blush on her puffy cheeks. "I uh...welcome home," she said bashfully, trying to gloss over the impulse. She had forgotten during her five-day period of moping that she hadn't _actually_ kissed him before. Only in dreams. She worried briefly if she had overstepped her boundaries, but then Kaine came in to recapture her in a second kiss, just as short, sweet, and entirely mutual.

Akemi and Rika looked at one another with matching smirks, planting similar little kisses on each other and locking their hands together. "One big happy family," Akemi murmured, noting to herself that the informal brother and sister pair had both so conveniently fallen for one of the Mori sisters apiece.

Makoto and Kaine locked eyes for a long while, standing in the doorway and thinking about everything that _could_ be thought about. The past, the future, who they were, who they _wanted_ to be. Questions swirled around, but they found answers in each other, the silence carrying on for a while before the foursome all traded glances. Kaine looked back to Makoto, going in for another kiss, but then his stomach growled. He looked down to his gut; it hurt, but his hunger was greater than his pain. "I think it's time to eat, I've been starving for days."

"Well, come on, then!" Makoto nodded, sunnier than ever. She led the way downstairs with a bounce in her step.

* * *

Kakashi and Tenzo had stuck around for several days after the _Truth Village Incident_ was properly closed, just in case any straggling survivors showed up with questions. Much to their surprise, Kaine Hamasaki and Susumu Hyuga had walked out of the trees in battered shape five days after the explosion, arm in arm and holding one another aloft. Kaine had gone immediately to the tavern, which wasn't surprising; Susumu, though, went directly for Kakashi.

"Kakashi Hatake, you've done great things for this nation, haven't you?" Susumu asked reverently as he limped toward his previously-hated enemy. Kakashi was perched in a tree, as was Tenzo; they both looked down to the white eyes glaring up at them, half-expecting a fight.

"I should have _known_ you would survive," Kakashi said down to the arrival with little surprise. "It didn't seem _like_ you to needlessly stay behind and die if there was something you could have done otherwise. You risked yourself to save Kaine, then?" Kakashi closed the book he had been reading, hopping down to meet Susumu eye to eye. After a tense moment of staring, Susumu raised one hand and stretched it forward.

Kakashi did the same, and the two palms met in the middle as a stern handshake. "Thank you, Susumu. You aren't _blameless_ in this incident, but the reported kidnappings and massacres were _certainly_ the doing of Mamban, not Minoru. With that said, you _are_ a rogue ninja; our mission is still to bring you back to the Hokage for questioning. Lady Tsunade has apparently discussed Kaine's situation with Danzo and the other elders; he's to be welcomed back, if that's his choice...but I don't think he's going to want to return with _us_, is he?"

Susumu shook his head. "No, I don't think that he is. As for me, you say that it is your duty to capture me." The Hyuga narrowed his eyes, arms raising out in front of him as if he were going to assume a combat stance. Tenzo, still high in the trees, began to fold his hands together into his wood-style sign, springing into action just as Susumu's motions hit their end. He wasn't lifting his hands to fight, but to surrender—his palms were down, his arms parallel and fists clenched submissively. "Take me in, then," Susumu said further, his head bowed respectfully.

Tenzo hopped down to join Kakashi, looking to Susumu's hands hesitantly, offering him a concession. "We don't really _need_ to bind you; I doubt that you're going to run away after you came this far to turn yourself in."

Susumu canted his head, his once-luxurious ponytail rather singed, its length nearly halved by the events of his village's end. "Perhaps it's only a _symbolic_ gesture, but the people of the Leaf will feel more comfortable if _all_ prisoners are bound...and _blindfolded_. Don't you think so?"

Kakashi hummed, eye closing. "You're probably right. It can wait until we're near the village, though." He understood the notion of covering the Byakugan; seeing a disgraced Hyuga would cause quite a stir in the village. He turned to his partner. "We should leave right away, Tenzo."

Tenzo flexed his brow. "Don't you want to say goodbye to the others, first?"

"We'll see them again. They're a part of the Leaf, now, remember?" Kakashi answered, then looked toward the sky. Clouds had returned in the days since the incident, but the expanse beyond them was still gloriously blue, hidden partially behind the white tufts.

"Do you feel bad about leaving those _other two_ behind?" Tenzo asked as an aside.

"Mamban's cursed henchmen? No, not particularly...we wouldn't have had _time_ to save everyone if we went to pry the two of them out of their holes. Put bluntly, they chose to be our enemies; like it or not, sometimes it isn't _worth_ saving an enemy," Kakashi said with trademarked coldness, but then he looked to Susumu's face and relaxed a bit. "Then again, not _every_ enemy is destined to remain as such. Maybe _they_ could have changed, too."

"I offered Cassy a chance to survive," Susumu said thoughtfully. "She never answered me with a yes or a no, though. In the end, maybe she's better off being in the afterlife with her deranged lover."

"Will you mourn for Mamban?" Kakashi asked, curious as he turned to leave Monolith Point behind. He said no goodbyes, nor did Tenzo. Susumu was the last loose end, neatly tied up as he joined them in their journey home.

"I have mourned him for thirteen years, Kakashi. That man was truly a different person from the one I used to know. He had always been rather cold, but no more than a typical soldier in that dreadful war...what he became was a totally unfeeling monster. He laughed when he slaughtered his own men. Dozens, _hundreds _of living puppets turned into empty husks in his bid to destroy as much as he could."

"He _wanted_ to destroy the Leaf Village," Kakashi said. "You helped us make that impossible. I owe you several thanks for the things you did in defiance of that beast, and I'll put in a good word with the Hokage. I only ask that you try not to do or say anything _too_ harsh when you're seated before her. The village might not be the same place of _despair_ that you remember it being; it's worth giving it a second look."

"No, Kakashi, you needn't worry. I'm _through_ with hating the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Ultimately, it's my home...and despite the bitterness that I still hold for Danzo and Orochimaru, I have been away from home for _far_ too long a time." Susumu gave one more nod, then fell silent as he thought of the strange course of events that took him on that journey.

Sometimes, the road leading home could be long and arduous, but it was a road that was _always_ worth traveling.

* * *

**Only _one_ chapter to go! It'll be posted within a few days, as always. Thank you for reading this far!**


	42. The End (Final Chapter)

**Here it is, the final chapter of the story! Enjoy!**

* * *

Monolith Point was still in ruins, but the world had a habit of quickly settling back into order. Buildings were half-constructed, their foundations laid and skeletal wooden planks raised in various positions. The old style of the village, the broad ring-shaped layout, was no longer going to cut it. The influx of new residents, courtesy of the removal of the Village Hidden by Truth, made it necessary to shift the unique donut-shape into a more traditional village design, marked by blocks and intersecting roads.

Kaine was still hurt, but he was already at work shaping the wood and forging the metal. He always had a gift for building, but it was compressed beneath all his rage, often devoted only to weaponry and his own selfish furnishings. His boundless anger was gradually subsiding, though—even while he worked, Makoto was at his side watching him while he sanded away the roughness along a shaft of wood that would soon become a new railing for the tavern's stairs. Despite the Mori's business being left standing, there was still a decent chunk of damage done to the stubborn old building that housed it.

"Sooo..." Makoto opened her mouth tentatively, her hands tucked behind her back while she watched Kaine work. "You're just making it _smooth_ now, right?"

Another voice answered from the side: "Smooth, but plain, kid!" the owner of the workshop said as he hammered at a sheet of metal. "Kaine over there's got no sense of _art_! All function, with boring form!" He laughed raucously, a smile on his face that seemed as wide as Kaine's shoulders were; the man was enormous, but friendly like a frog. Kaine and Makoto were occupying the village blacksmith's work area. The condensed heat of the forge was oddly comforting compared to the nippy winds outside, but it made working _in_side all the more exhausting.

Kaine was wearing his Leaf headband proudly, and it functioned as a sweatband as the salty emissions tried to trickle into his eyes. There was a pecking sound against the front door, and the blacksmith put on a face that wasn't truly angry, but wasn't glad, either. "It's for _you_, kid," he muttered, slamming his hammer down hard on something that would someday become a door joint. Sparks flew, orange and luminous.

"Hold this for me," Kaine said to Makoto, handing her the sheet of sandpaper that he had been rubbing along the slowly-shaping rail before he stood up to go to the door. Upon opening it, he was met with a pleased screech from Astor's beak right beside his ear. The hawk was hovering in the air, dropping the occasional feather to the dirt below. "Astor, you're back!" Kaine exclaimed, stepping outside and holding his arm out. "Any news from Kakashi?"

Astor's foot had a message tied to it, which Kaine unstrung and rolled open while his other hand fetched a piece of jerky. He always had some on hand. The scroll had the mark of the Hokage; it wasn't just Kakashi who had something to say. "Seems important," he murmured as he skimmed the contents. It was a fairly long letter. Upon reaching the end, his expression had turned blank; he blinked quite a number of times before he turned to look inside the blacksmith. "Hmm...I wonder what Akemi's going to think of this..."

* * *

The chosen room within the Leaf Village had brown, wooden floors and white plaster walls; it smelled vaguely of balsa and honey. There were no windows; the light was provided from the ceiling by a set of electrical fixtures and shone down with artificial whiteness. The purity of the illumination's color was blinding to some; as such, the room was perfect for the hearings of criminals and prisoners of war. Susumu was on the so-called chopping block that day, almost immediately after his delivery by the hands of Kakashi and Tenzo. The pair of Jonin had requested to be present at the council meeting during which the renegade Hyuga's fate would be decided, but pressure from the elders—Danzo Shimura included—made their inclusion impossible. The two had been too close to the heart of the conflict. Their judgments could not have been unbiased, or so the opposition's reasoning was.

The chamber was more like a prison cell than a meeting room, the single table at the far end actually being a mobile fixture that came and went as the chamber was needed or not needed for one thing or the next. The temperature was comfortable, if a bit humid compared to the dryness of the Truth Village's former region. Susumu was bound by chains and placed upon his knees to hear the judgments cast upon him. He was not expressly _forbidden_ to speak in his own defense, but at the earliest phase of his swift trial, he had suggested that there _was_ no defense for his actions.

The Hokage herself, Tsunade, was leafing through a six-inch-thick pile of documentation and notes compiled by Kakashi and Tenzo during their return trip from the mission region. They had taken their time coming back, but their arrival was sorely needed. Already, Tsunade had a backlog of missions that needed to be looked at; each of the two successful shinobi would be given a short break, a few days at the most, and then sent back into the field as needed. That was a matter for the next day, however; at present, the blonde-headed Fire Shadow was rubbing her temple, her stern fingers a few inches removed from the ever-present violet diamond upon her forehead. The long hearing had been stressful thus far, and it was getting worse.

"The successful resolution of this event, an event which will now be referred to as 'The Truth Village Incident,' has come at a high cost, Princess Tsunade," Danzo offered as part of the judging council. His intimate knowledge of certain persons of interest had made him a necessary inclusion—and of course, his first move after being named to the temporary committee was to strike all mentions of Root from the discussion; he argued, as he _must_ have argued, that the organization no longer existed. "That said...there are several loose ends that need to be tied." The man with the cross-shaped scar along his chin turned his half-bandaged face toward Homura Mitokado, a mainstay of the elder council. The gray-headed man nodded, his boxy glasses firmly secured to his nose.

"We've gone over this, Danzo. There _are_ no more loose ends according to Kakashi Hatake's report." Tsunade tapped a manicured pointer finger against the top of the stack of papers laid out on the table in front of her. The four-person jury was seated adjacent to one another, one single table facing Susumu Hyuga's disgraced, bowed form, raised upon a level of flooring that was a foot higher than the prisoner's own. "You seem pretty agitated by this whole circumstance, Danzo; in fact, is there something about the incident that you haven't told to the council already?" Tsunade wanted to smirk slyly at her political adversary, but she kept herself poised for the sake of formality.

"The report upon this table names such parties as Kaine Hamasaki, Akemi Yamaguchi, Rika Mori—as well as numerous others—as past accomplices of this renegade individual." Danzo gestured to Susumu with his bandaged arm. "Should we not imprison them _all_ for the time being, for the sake of protecting the welfare of the Leaf?"

Forgetting poise for a moment, Tsunade rolled her eyes and flattened both of her hands on the wood of the table. "Has it not already been made clear that this meeting is _solely_ for the discussion of the fate of one _Susumu Hyuga_, a missing-nin and enemy of the Leaf? The guilt or lack of guilt regarding his accomplices are hardly the issue, at present." The hat of the Hokage, a white, dome-topped circle with flowing drapery around the edges and a red center ornament that spelled the word 'fire' at its helm, was rested over the back of Tsunade's chair; it gave her the weight of the final decision, and with such heaviness on her shoulders she was ready to do everything she could to honor Kakashi's wishes. She would have liked to have the copy ninja there, as well as Tenzo, to make the scales a bit more _even_—Danzo had the other two council members on his side almost as a default rule, thanks to their long history together.

"You remain soft," Homura said to Tsunade, seated at Danzo's side. His arms were folded and his eyes slicing sharp behind his glasses to gaze pointedly at the Fifth Hokage. "As we are all aware, and as the report mentions, three of those 'accomplices,' so-named, are now Genin of the Leaf, approved personally by your pen. Could you explain to us here why that is the case, given their treacherous history of collaboration with the accused?"

Tsunade nodded, closing her eyes. "At the time of my approval, Kakashi Hatake had already given me a glowing recommendation, and has continued to personally vouch for all three of them. His reputation and rank are on the line, but he has _absolute confidence_ in his request to name them as shinobi of the Leaf." She wanted to mention that Kaine Hamasaki had already _been_ part of the Leaf, but it would have inevitably brought up the word 'Root,' which Danzo had successfully turned into a dirty word for the proceedings. It felt like a dirty word _regardless_, though. "The three of them are under my direct jurisdiction; once again I would like to say that they're not the focus, here. Susumu Hyuga is kneeling before us, head bowed in silence and awaiting our decision. Let's not keep him waiting forever."

Danzo stood up from his chair, inviting quick glances from the two elders who flanked his seat. He stepped around the long, wide table, putting himself in front of Susumu and stepping down from the raised platform. He looked down upon the proud face of the Hyuga, and in that pride Danzo saw plenty of reasons to be disgusted. He recognized the face—it had been over thirteen years, but he so easily recognized it. "During the Third Shinobi World War, you were assigned to rid a forested area of enemy scouts and suppliers. Do you recall this mission?"

Susumu gave a quiet not. Danzo continued: "You never returned from that mission, yet you were not killed or captured by the enemy. Please explain what you were doing instead of following your official itinerary."

Susumu had no choice but to speak, but he did so briefly: "A matter of great importance rose to my attention. I made a decision as squad leader to alter the assignment."

Danzo grumbled, his wrinkled face tightening up. The way his throat gurgled roughly with annoyance certainly revealed his age in a way that his almost-black hair did not. "Were you given _permission_ to alter the assignment?"

"No," came the quick reply. His voice was smooth and calm, a tone he had practiced for many years.

"Then why did you do it?" Danzo needled; the others were quiet. Thus far, his questions had been innocuous enough so as to follow procedures. "Why did you abandon your comrades for the sake of something else?"

"There were children; sick, dying children. They needed our help. We gave them what we could." Susumu answered plainly. "We requested further assistance from our base camp, but none was ever sent."

Danzo raised a hand to cut the prisoner off of his speaking, turning to look at Tsunade. "He admits to willfully altering his team's orders for the sake of children who were already doomed." His wrinkled-shut eye turned back to the captive. "The base you're referring to was spotted by the enemy scouts—scouts that _you_ failed to deal with while you were distracted by playing games with children. Good men and women died that day because of the hole you left open in our lines."

"I made a call," Susumu replied. "It may have been the _wrong_ call, but I accept that now. I admit that none of those children survived, in the end."

Danzo nodded. "That's correct. You have _accepted_ that you are wrong. That should make your _justified_ punishment much easier to bear."

"Do as you will." Susumu said with a nod.

Danzo turned to the others. "I recommend putting this man to _death_; not only has he been a traitor for thirteen years, but as he has already confessed, in those thirteen years he devoted himself to raising a village while full of vengeful thoughts, and then he pointed those thoughts toward _our_ gates. Through the valiant efforts of our brave shinobi, his plans were thwarted, but the potential damage he could have caused can now be seen on the far east coast; there is a fresh crater that is larger than our _village_. This man would have used that power to destroy us. Let us destroy _him_ in kind." Danzo tapped his walking stick to the wooden floor, emphasizing the end of his point.

Tsunade cleared her throat, also moving to stand, but she stayed behind the table rather than facing Danzo on the lower level. "While it's true that the crater _could _have been this village, Kakashi Hatake's report also outlines in detail that this man before us was _vital_ to the containment of the explosion that _caused_ that crater. The report names a man called 'Mamban' as the sole cause of the devastation; Susumu Hyuga's intended vengeance remained an intention, and not something that was ever carried out."

"And yet here he is, at the very heart of our village with the throbbing energy of one of Orochimaru's curse marks over his heart. He is right where he _wants_ to be. Every moment of idle chatter is a moment that could be our last, so long as he draws breath within our walls." Danzo was getting increasingly agitated. Tsunade was getting more resistant to his influence, and that didn't bode well for him.

"His curse has been sealed by Kakashi already," Tsunade retorted.

Koharu Utatane, the fourth member of the committee, finally spoke: "Sasuke Uchiha's mark was sealed, as well, but that didn't prevent him from betraying us all." She was old like Homura and softer spoken, but there was strength in the bags of her cheeks. She commanded great respect, just like the others—_and_ she had a fair point. Tsunade relented, though just slightly.

"Sasuke Uchiha's circumstance is different. Susumu Hyuga turned himself over to our custody voluntarily; he's been nothing but cooperative, so far. Putting him to death is a bit much, even considering his past transgressions." Tsunade felt cornered from all sides. Kakashi explicitly told her that Susumu didn't deserve to die—and she was doing what she could, but the heft of the man's proven crimes was pulling at her hair.

"An entirely separate village was massacred and destroyed along the border—aside from that, members of _our_ village had gone missing in that region repeatedly over the course of several months. Are you suggesting that this man is _not_ responsible for those disappearances?" Danzo confronted Tsunade.

Not to be swayed, Tsunade turned it back upon him. "The report lays the blame on Mamban—it even mentions that this Mamban character was a part of Susumu's team during the Third War. Even if he was involved at first, Susumu ultimately secured the freedom of many men and women who were once under the influence of what certainly appeared to be curse marks; marks that were meant to control their victims' actions."

Danzo was getting frustrated, finally. He moved closer to Susumu, looking the defiant-yet-submissive man in the eyes. "Regardless of his _present_ state of mind, he fled the Leaf and exposed the precious Byakugan to potential enemies without our supervision. That crime alone should warrant a punishment of _blindness_." Danzo reached his hand toward Susumu's left eye, fingers outstretched and ready to snatch the oculus free from the socket on the spot.

Susumu didn't flinch; he seemed on the surface to be quite sincere about his willingness to accept his punishment. Just as Danzo's fingers touched to Susumu's lids, a strong hand stopped his advance and squeezed with determined tightness. Tsunade was standing beside Danzo, arm shuddering with restraint as she managed to hold herself back from snapping his wrist in half. "Keep your hands off of the prisoner, Danzo Shimura; as the Fifth Hokage, I see this man as a part of the Leaf, and not someone for you to marginalize or abuse."

Danzo gave a grunt, shaking himself back from his advance and freeing his wrist from Tsunade's grip; he wondered if she noticed the odd texture of his flesh beneath the freshly-changed bandages, but she seemed none-the-wiser. Rather than have his dealings exposed, he relented with great reluctance. "Fine, then. He shall not be put to death...but we should make immediate arrangements for his transference to Hozuki Castle."

Tsunade flexed her brows. "The Blood Prison...? That won't be necessary, either...in fact, as the Fifth Hokage, I intend to give Susumu Hyuga his _freedom_."

Silence set in save for a startled gasp from Susumu, a startled man upon his knees on the wooden floor. He vibrated with trepidation; had he been hearing her correctly? Was it even possible for such words to have been spoken? No, not at all—he was dreaming in his cell the night before the hearing; that was the only proper explanation.

The quiet was broken by Danzo tapping his cane upon the floor a second time. "I will _not_ stand for that."

"You don't _have to_, Danzo. I've _made_ my decision. Based on Kakashi Hatake's impressions and recommendations, I am hereby granting Susumu Hyuga forgiveness for his actions as a rogue ninja—though only on the condition that he never draws power from his curse mark again, and that his actions be routinely monitored by a team...a team of_ my _choosing_._"

Danzo recoiled as if he had been struck across the jaw. His machinations had been torn apart by those few words; though the mention of Root had been stifled during the hearing, he was starting to see that Tsunade was quite worthy as his rival. He had no delusions that Tsunade would be willing to select one of _his_ recommended shinobi for the task of being the Hyuga's babysitter. Still, to humor himself, he asked: "And who will be on that team, exactly?"

Tsunade _did_ smirk that time, rounding the table to stand behind her chair, lifting the Hokage's hat from its backrest and placing it over her head. "It should be obvious—I'm going to send word down to Monolith Point: he'll be under the care of Kaine Hamasaki, Akemi Yamaguchi, and Rika Mori, our village's newest, most highly-recommended team of Genin."

Danzo almost broke a tooth when he clenched his jaw, that time. "That's hardly appropriate..." he murmured, trying to keep his agitation concealed. Fortunately for him, he was good at it. The other two members of the council were silent; they had often shared strong words with the Hokage, but even they were stunned by the boldness of her decision.

"It's my _final_ decision; I won't be needing any more input from my advisers on this matter. As such, this hearing is over; Susumu Hyuga is going to be released into the custody of his new team as soon as the arrangements have been made. Of course, we'll have to remove his rank—his desertion is certainly worthy of a demotion or two. He'll be a Genin, just like the rest of them." Tsunade tucked the front of her hat over her forehead, smiling sweetly and then turning to leave the room. _Let that mole Danzo try to do something behind my back again; I've got my eyes on him, now... _she was still terrible at organizing her desk, but she was getting the hang of dealing with her opposition, at very least. The conditional pardon served two purposes—honoring Kakashi's wishes, and stuffing Danzo's powerlessness right into his face. Petty? Maybe, but Tsunade couldn't deny that she still had a petty streak deep inside.

* * *

Outside, Kakashi was leaning against a tree near the center of the Leaf Village; he had been forbidden from attending the meeting, but he was still concerning himself with how it had gone. Kaine was suitably redeemed, but Kakashi had also started to see that same latent goodness in Susumu's heart, as well. Somehow, he had begun to see things more like Naruto and Obito must have—the bright lights were twinkling along in everybody's soul when he looked at them. Even the most dangerous, cruel monsters had one thing that they cherished, one thing that could be clutched, one thing that could be isolated and then expanded upon to push out the darkness.

Susumu's 'one thing' was love, after all—the stony, calligraphy-styled heart that had once been upon his headband was not so much of a lie, in the end of things. Kakashi realized that the Hyuga defector wasn't _evil_, he had only lost his way. Kakashi didn't like to think of his own time with the Anbu, but that period was a dark one for him. Losing Obito, then losing Rin, and then even losing his sensei, Minato, had put him into a state of true vulnerability. With just a single push in the wrong direction, he might have ended up like Susumu, or possibly even Mamban. He wondered to himself as he lounged across a tree branch: what had driven _Orochimaru_ to such an extreme state of mind? Was he still a man somewhere inside the snake-like body modifications and decaying flesh?

He was ripped out of his speculative thoughts by Tenzo—once again, the man with numerous codenames was trying to sneak up on his old rival, but it was no use. "How did it go?" Kakashi asked, knowing already that the wood-user was in a separate tree, one that was two units away and still covered with leaves.

Tenzo sighed, crouching down and draping his arms over his knees. "Went just about how you wanted it to; I didn't see it, but the Hokage told me all about it as she left the room. Susumu's going to be pardoned of his crimes, provided that he swears off of using the power of his curse seal...and he's also going to be demoted to Genin and stuck onto a team with Kaine and the others down in Monolith Point."

Kakashi blinked, not sure he heard correctly. "She's putting them all on a team together? Mm, I don't envy whoever ends up facing _them_ in the Chunin exams someday."

"Well, they're a team of four. Only three of them will be part of the exam, as per the rules. Who do you think will sit out if that day comes?" Tenzo pursued the lighthearted trail of conversation; it sure beat the moping that had been in the air over the previous few days.

"If I had to place a bet, I'd put it on Kaine being the one to sit out. He might even quit being a ninja." Kakashi looked over to Tenzo, his dark eye scanning his partner and realizing that the latter was already dressed in his gray Anbu vest once more, his usual white mask hanging off the side of his face. "Already getting back into the fray?"

Tenzo nodded. "That's right. There's still a lot of work to be done; the Akatsuki are on everybody's mind. Itachi, especially—with Sasuke and Orochimaru out there, things are going to start getting volatile really quickly if we don't keep a handle on them. We may have stopped the uprising down south, but there are a lot of other directions to keep track of."

Kakashi hummed, then gave a nod. "That's the truth. Good luck on your missions, Tenzo; I'll be seeing you around. Oh, and I hope that we can work together again, soon."

Tenzo gave an appreciative smile. "You really mean that, don't you?" He couldn't hide the genuine gladness. "Good to hear—anyway, when Naruto returns I have a feeling that we'll both eventually be assigned to keep an eye on him. Jiraiya's a capable teacher, no doubt, but with the seal weakening as quickly as it is, it won't be much longer until Naruto needs _me_ around if he wants to keep the Nine Tails in line."

"Make sure that you're there for him when the time comes," Kakashi advised.

"It's a promise. Until next time, Kakashi," Tenzo gave a friendly salute from across the branches, then the tree shook and he was out of sight.

* * *

Kakashi's next stop was to visit the Hokage in less-than-official capacity; he had already attended his debriefing, which dragged on for hours due to all of the complicated turns the mission had taken. That was when he made his wishes known that Susumu Hyuga should be spared from execution—Tsunade had taken it a step further and granted him a conditional sort of freedom, which sat a bit wrong on Kakashi's thoughts. Susumu had proven himself worthy of being a shinobi, true, but there was still the chance of things going horribly wrong again in the future.

He was standing outside of the door to Tsunade's office, considering what he was going to say. His hand was on his masked chin when the thick entryway was swung open and into the room, with the smooth-haired Shizune stepping out with a stack of books in her arms. She nearly ran into Kakashi before she stopped cold and stiffened, putting on a nervous smile as a few of her books toppled to the ground. "Oh, Kakashi...it's you," she said as a whisper, blushing a little. She bent down to fetch the fallen tomes, and Kakashi helped her to gather them up.

"Just here for a visit, Shizune. Thanks for opening the door," he said, effectively forgiving her imagined slight. He gave a pat to the top of her towering books when they had been balanced again. "I'll see you later," he said to her as he stepped into the office and shut the door behind him. She seemed to like hearing that, and tucked her head down to bury her face behind her hefty supplies to cover the embarrassment.

Inside the office, Tsunade was hard at work on the next issue at large. She looked up from her strewn-about charts, diagrams, and contracts and blew a strand of hair out of her line of sight with a single puff of air. "Kakashi, I wasn't expecting you," she said hurriedly as she scribbled something at the bottom of a document.

"I'm just here to thank you for what you did for Susumu...but I didn't suggest that he should be completely _free_. I trust Kaine, but let it be noted that I don't trust _Susumu_," Kakashi emphasized, standing in front of the Hokage's desk with his hands tucked into his pockets.

"Speaking as a flawed human and not as the Hokage, I can tell you this: something came over me, and I _really_ wanted to put Danzo in his place. _I'm_ the Hokage now, so his free ride is over. The Third may have been soft to Danzo's dealings and shadiness, but I don't intend to let him slither around without repercussions. Your report explicitly detailed Mamban's origins as a part of Root; we can't _prove_ that Danzo was personally involved in Orochimaru's experiments, experiments which led to the creation of those curse marks, but I can think of no better explanation. As far as I'm concerned, Susumu's crimes are the responsibility of Orochimaru, and not his own doing."

"That's not _entirely_ true, Lady Hokage," Kakashi said, looking up and to the side. "Regardless, I respect your decision. I'll be waiting for my next mission; you know where to find me."

Tsunade nodded, her hands folded under her chin; she used Kakashi's presence as an excuse to take a short break from her work—with Shizune out of the room, it was easy for her to get away with taking a breather. "Yes, I know, but I won't have any new missions for you until you've had some more rest."

Kakashi gave a nod, then in a whoosh of air he was out the window. He was considerate, though—the papers on Tsunade's desk ruffled, but they did not blow away entirely. Shizune returned just as he left; she provided a brand new helping of chores for the busy Hokage. "He didn't stay long?" Shizune remarked, somewhat out of breath.

"He's got somewhere else to be, Shizune," Tsunade murmured, diving back into the motions and requests piled upon her workspace. "You can take a break if you'd like to see more of him," she added with a sly smirk.

Shizune held both hands up; her face looked a bit frazzled and she shook her head. "No, no, I'll stay here..." she cleared her throat and leaned down to scoop Tonton out of her prepared bed in the corner. Shizune ran her finger along the small pig's necklace, and the little pink creature oinked pleasantly and snuggled into the warm hold. "I'll just catch up with him _later_."

* * *

"The Will of Fire is still spreading further and further. It's contagious, isn't it?" Kakashi spoke to the memorial stone, a large kunai-shaped rock that was long-ago carved with the names of fallen heroes of the Leaf. New names were steadily being added; Kakashi scanned the surface for Susumu's name, but he didn't find it. "Susumu got another chance to live a good life; I wonder if he'll squander it away on something petty this time. What do _you_ think, Obito?" Kakashi knelt down beside the stone and laid out a selection of flowers, staying crouched and then running his eyes along the reflective black sheen. After a few long minutes, he stood himself up and gave a sigh. "Anyway, it was a long and tiring mission. I'm going to go tell Rin about it, and then I'm going to _sleep_ for a few days. I'll visit again, soon." He reluctantly stepped away from the memorial, slouching and taking his time as he went from one place to the next.

* * *

**Six Months Later:**

Kaine and Makoto were sitting together in the recently-reopened noodle shop. Makoto was urging him to try new things, but somewhere along the line Kaine had been left out of the loop as to _what_ he was actually being enlisted to try. Looking at a steaming bowl of buttered noodles, he gulped solid. "You mean to say that _Medo's_ the one who made these? I didn't even know the guy could _cook_..."

Makoto snickered, covering her mouth with one dainty hand while inadvertently flashing a silvery band on her pinky finger. "Just _try_ them; and don't forget that he's watching from over there..." She pointed a chopstick toward the kitchen. An open port offered a view into the food preparation area; two sets of eyes were looking their way—one set belonged to Medo, the other belonged to Sammy. The two had stricken up a professional friendship upon discovering a mutual love of cooking, and they had asked to be hired on as apprentice chefs to the original proprietors of the noodle stand. It had become more than a stand, though—it had evolved into a full restaurant, and it even managed to compete with the Mori family's tavern as the most popular place to eat in the revitalized town.

Kaine swallowed his reservations and gave one cautious glance toward Medo; the two men who were once a part of the Truth Village were fair-weather friends, but it was common for the pair to get into fights about nothing. Noodles could very well have been the powder keg that set another scuffle off, and Kaine would have liked to avoid an argument in front of Makoto. "Does he know I can't stand noodles...?" Kaine added, trying for damage control.

Makoto gave him a scowl, playful but telling. "Just take a _bite_; they're getting _cold_," she teased, swirling a lump of her own noodles about one of her sticks and dropping the gangly tendrils into her mouth. She gave an encouraging smile, then swallowed. "See? They're good. Want me to feed you like a toddler?" She took up a scoop from Kaine's bowl, then wagged her utensil in front of his face. "See? Here comes the birdie! Don't you want to open the nest so she can visit her babies?"

Kaine's left eyebrow twitched; he raised a chopstick to gently nudge Makoto's wiggling noodles out of his face, turning his deadpan expression into a forced smile. "Thanks for the offer, lovely dearest, but I'll feed _myself_," he said through clenched teeth. He looked irritated, but his eyes told the truth. He was happy every day. Of course his anger issues hadn't been solved overnight, and he still occasionally got that leftover urge to kill something, but Makoto's presence had made it all easier. Life had been surprisingly good since he returned to the Monolith.

With a deep breath, Kaine closed his eyes and opened his mouth, taking a whole mass of the slippery white noodles into his maw. He started to chew, but about two chomps in he gagged and covered his mouth. _Don't spit them out, don't spit them out, don't spit— _

He spat them out. They sprayed from his mouth back into his bowl, some of the smaller bits getting on the pristine table and leaving buttery dribbles across its surface. Makoto was aghast, her eyes wide like saucer plates and pointed toward the kitchen. The part of Medo's bronze brow that could be seen was beginning to grow a vein. Sammy was doing what she could to pat him down and calm him, but he stood up and rose a fist, sticking it out through the viewing port and frightening the other customers. "You ungrateful little bastard, how _dare_ you spit out my signature noodles!?"

Kaine gagged one more time, then wiped his mouth with his short blue sleeve. Makoto was the one to get irked at him next: "You could use a _napkin_, at least," she murmured, already standing up from the table, whispering just for him. "I think maybe we should go; you two are making a scene," she reached her hand out, aiming to escort Kaine out of the restaurant before Medo and Sammy both started throwing things at them.

Outside, Kaine was still wiping his mouth and spitting. "Gah, I don't see how anybody could call those abominations a signature _anything_; they tasted like any other crappy batch of congealed flour and eggs that I've ever tasted." He reached his finger up to wipe off his tongue, trying to cleanse the flavor away. Makoto stopped him by reaching her face up and kissing his lips briefly, then licking her own.

"I thought they were _good_, now be quiet—they can still hear you in there!" Makoto wagged her finger at Kaine and seemed upset, but inside she was all smiles. She knew what he was really like inside, she knew the things he had done and wanted to forget. Seeing him so riled up over a simple bite of food was actually quite an improvement—it meant that he had the freedom of thought to sweat the _little_ things.

Kaine eventually shrugged. "Let's get some distance from that place..." Slinging his arm around Makoto's waist, Kaine took her on a walk through the reformed Monolith Point. The winter had come and gone, and the place once called Monolith Point had been renamed as Monolith Village; it had grown much larger and been built much wider after its razing. Kaine Hamasaki was among the crew that worked straight through the cold season and assembled a functional system of roads and houses; Tenzo had offered to build everything in short order with his Wood Style, but the township insisted upon doing their own work—the village was a testament to the people who lived there.

It had been upgraded somewhat, as well. Through some clever negotiations arranged by none other than Susumu Hyuga, a nearby village had agreed to run a set of power lines through the earth to provide a starting point for Monolith Village to build off of—standalone generators were in the works, with tests routinely being performed by Kaine and his lightning element.

"We've come a long way, yeah?" Kaine asked to Makoto at his right. She was wearing a rather simple-but-shining ring on her finger, and on the inside it bore Kaine's own hallmark. After only a few months, he felt confident enough to make something for her, something that wasn't a weapon _and_ had some sense of style. Of course she had loved the gift, and she wore it every day.

"Yep!" Makoto answered, standing beside the man of her dreams who had been turned into flesh and arrived just as destiny had planned. They toured the new layout again; more of the buildings were being completed with each passing day, and more residents were showing up to make the place their home. The explosion had rocked the entire country, whether via shockwave or trembling earth, and it had made people remember that there _was _usable land to the south of the Land of Fire. The enormous crater left by Mamban's self-destruction—ambitiously entitled 'Truthseeker's Lake'—was gradually filling up with water from the tiny stream which cut through most of the countryside.

The lovers came to the Monolith that was still the center of town, an edifice of what seemed like pure onyx. New names and symbols were being added by the day as new visitors arrived in the village. Kaine was proudly wearing his Leaf headband, a memento of Kakashi and of his own new duties as an official member of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Officially, he was to keep tabs on Susumu Hyuga and the other two Genin assigned to his loosely-titled 'team.' Unofficially, he was retired from shinobi duties for the time being. Akemi and Rika tended to do their own thing, too; once Akemi's broken shoulder healed, the pair talked about where they wanted to go next.

Honestly, they were _still_ talking about it; neither wanted to stay in Monolith Village forever, but they both had to admit that there were strong bonds in that bustling place. Akemi and Rika were also at the monolith when Kaine and Makoto arrived; both couples were holding hands and came to meet one another in front of a low-lying blank spot upon the northern face of the rock.

"Hey, lovebirds," Akemi teased, running an idle hand through Rika's curls while seated behind her with her legs spread to make room for Rika to use her stomach as a pillow. "How's the day?"

Kaine grumbled, looking off to the side. "I still hate noodles, and that's all I'm going to say about it..."

Akemi smirked, leaning down and kissing Rika's forehead. The feminine pair's headbands were taken from their foreheads and wrapped around their necks, covering up the pink scars that were left by Mamban's scorching acid. They still matched, but at the same time they weren't fans of looking unsightly. "How do you hate them? You know, I _love_ noodles, Kaine," Akemi said through a laugh. "They remind me of this one's hair," she added, nudging one of Rika's wild clumps of locks with her nose.

"Yeah, well, don't ever ask me to _eat_ her hair. I wouldn't want to offend you when I said no." He didn't know why he said it; in his head, it sounded clever, but upon hearing the words out loud he kind of wished he could ask for a do-over. The other three all started to laugh, and just as he was about to make some kind of threat, Susumu approached them from one of the incomplete avenues. The road didn't lead to any viable businesses, but there was something very important at its ending.

"A thought has occurred to me, my friends," Susumu said with a light heart. "We have been here for several months, yet we have not all made our marks upon this great stone." He stepped up to the pointed spire, placing his hand upon a blank spot and running his finger in an odd shape, spacing it out.

Kaine looked to the rock, too; his old symbol was still there, getting a bit worn but still easily identified. Others weren't as precise as he was, so their scoring marks reached outside their boundaries and took small chunks out of Kaine's own work—the solitary cloud with the falling rain and the impaling lightning. In retrospect, it looked lonely, and so _angry_; had that _really_ been an indication of his personal truth at one point? It seemed so long ago, those days when he resented the rain. He had come to _adore_ the rain whenever it fell; whenever the sky grew dark on some early spring days, Kaine and Makoto would join together on the roof of the tavern and let the droplets hit their faces for hours.

His thoughts were innately wary of Susumu's intentions; an old habit, to be sure. The man had once been Minoru, but he had_ changed_. There was no poison in the food, no monthly test of strength that ended numerous lives—Monolith Village was unofficially the new Truth Village, but it carried none of the _darkness_. Rather than a new Village Hidden by Truth, it was made of the best parts of Monoloth Point and the Truth Village; its name suggested such, but very subtly. Kaine had been offered mayorship of the expanded settlement, but he had turned it down—he deferred the responsibility to Susumu, though the Land of Fire would not consent to that man being in charge after the role he played in creating the southeastern crater to begin with.

There was no official mayor or governor of the newly-christened village, but those who had questions would often refer to Susumu for answers. His decisions were often sound. Kaine had grown to legitimately respect the new man, the one who was at the center of the old and discarded shell of Minoru. The mark upon Susumu's breast was perhaps still a point of concern, but in keeping true to his promise to the Leaf, it remained sealed by Kakashi's formidable technique.

"Where were you at, anyway, Susumu?" Makoto asked; she always had a trusting innocence to her. Akemi and Rika still didn't trust the ex-leader—and who could blame them for their wariness? Aside from his blindfolding mask, he looked the same as he had when he sent their team to potential death. He had 'trimmed the fat' and directly been responsible for several intentional murders; Tito and Nick were but two names that were planted in the relocated field of memories. It wasn't a graveyard; no bodies were buried there. The names were there to be remembered forever, but the bodies had all been lost with the Truth Village's total annihilation.

"I was visiting Mako and Fiona," Susumu said, head turned away in shame. "The names upon the stones are a grim reminder of the depths I once sunk to...but those two's living, blinking eyes are a more potent dose of reality than any other. I once sent them to their deaths...and today, again, I begged forgiveness...and again I was turned down."

"I don't blame them," Akemi said under her breath, but Susumu heard her.

He didn't confront her about it; inwardly, he agreed with her. He _deserved_ hate and distrust; he had fully expected to be put to death or permanently confined to the Blood Prison, yet somehow he had been granted a nearly-full pardon. He wasn't blind to the circumstances; he could feel the tension in the air between Danzo Shimura and the new Hokage. He _would_ have thanked Danzo silently for the accidentally-given opportunity, if not for the role the elder man played in sending so many innocent lives into Orochimaru's twisted claws.

"Fiona got it _really_ bad," Kaine said, running his hand along Makoto's shoulder protectively. "Lost an eye, and her whole face is scarred...Mako got a bit lucky by comparison, but I'd hardly say either one of them came out looking 'good.' Still, there's something to be said about the power of love...they look at each other like they always used to do during training. It's like when they look at each other, _nothing_ has changed. Honestly, I don't think they _care_ what the world thinks of them."

Makoto nodded, looking down to Rika and Akemi with a frown. She felt the animosity brewing down there, but she couldn't justify telling them to lighten up or change their attitudes; even _she_ had reasons to resent Susumu, too. Tito and Nick were friends of hers, as were Mako and Fiona—living or dead, only Rika and Sammy left Monolith Point and came back from the Truth Village unscathed.

"The _world's_ opinion is overrated, if you ask me," Rika said, yawning. She was close to falling asleep in the afternoon sun, turning onto her side and burying her cheek and ear against Akemi's chest. "As long as we've got at least _one_ person who matters to us, people will do just fine..."

Susumu stepped up to the monolith and drew a kunai from his hand, charging it with wind chakra and putting its tip to the blackened surface. He began to etch out a swirling pattern; bits of rock fell away at the slightest touch, and a few moments later he stepped away to admire his work. It needed a few touch-ups, which he administered, and after a short while his work was complete. It was a perfectly-rendered impression of the symbol of the Leaf, its spiral wide enough to fit lettering in-between. He started from the center and wrote his name in small, curving letters which grew a bit larger as the gap in the spiral did.

"There. I've left enough room for all of us to lay our names upon this rock as an official part of the Leaf Village." Susumu stepped away and handed the kunai to Kaine, who took it with a proud smirk.

"Works for me," he said as he surged lightning into the cutting tool to make its process easier. His handwriting was steady, but not as sweeping as his former master's. When his name was within the symbol, he offered the pointed instrument to Akemi. She groaned as she stood up, gently nudging Rika aside to complete the 'guestbook.'

Aki's letters were wobbly; penmanship and precision were never an earth element's strong suit, but she did well enough. She looked down to Rika, who was smiling with rosy cheeks. "Think you should sign, or are you already on here?" Akemi asked, then started to look along the enormous onyx pillar, but she saw no signs of her lover's name. There were hundreds, if not thousands—odds were good that the oldest of the women present was probably just skipping over it.

Regardless, Rika had no problem signing twice. She took the kunai in one hand and Akemi's arm in the other to pull herself up, adding her name last as a part of the Leaf. "There! We're officially a part of this place's history." She thought for a moment, then smacked the side of her fist into an open palm. "Oh shoot, I just realized that we never got Kakashi and Tenzo to sign it."

"It's okay," Makoto said with reassurance. "They'll be back to visit sometime, I know it. We'll get them to leave marks _then_."

Rika nodded, then Kaine and Akemi did, too. Susumu retrieved his personal kunai from Rika's hand and tucked it into a pouch at his side. He wasn't dressed as a shinobi at that point; he still had his old Leaf headband from many years ago locked away someplace safe, but he opted not to wear it. His clothing was simple, a full-length robe that was his favorite shade of blue, but not one as fancy as his older one. It was made of a cloth that itched in a few inconvenient places, but it made the statement he wanted it to make.

"I'm going to treat myself to some stew," Susumu said after a long pause. "Any of you are welcome to join me," he offered, looking individually to each of the four people before him. Makoto and Kaine were the kindest to him; Makoto because of how naïve and trusting she was, and Kaine because he actually understood his mentor's decisions. Akemi and Rika were bitter, but those feelings would probably pass.

"No thanks; wouldn't want someone to _poison_ me," Akemi mumbled, crossing her arms and turning away. The harshness of her words stung Susumu's heart, but it _had_ only been a few months—the trust would regrow, in time. Susumu had total faith in that. The fivesome who were gathered at the monolith were a peculiar bunch, but they were a _family_ nonetheless.

And to each of them, nothing would _ever_ be more important than family.

* * *

**The Land of Iron:**

Snow was white and sparkling across the sloped hills, the winds bitter and intrusive. Two people were sheltered in a cave without even a fire to keep them warm and visible. They were a pair of fugitives; they couldn't risk lighting a signal beacon to invite their pursuers. "It's been over six months...when do you think they'll _stop_?" the male of the duo asked; he was out of breath. They had been running for a _long_ time.

The female was already dealing with one such pursuer at the very mouth of the cave, a man in a white mask with the vest of a Root member across his chest and shoulders. He was bound from head to toe and suspended in the air, struggling to speak or breathe. With a flex of the woman's fingers, the figure was silenced and then turned into a sequence of little, meaty cubes. His full supply of blood splashed onto the pure snow beneath. The small, gruesome patch turned from red to pink, then from pink to white as the newly fallen powder covered up the stains with unbiased haste. "They'll _never_ give up; I tried to warn you...Danzo Shimura's wrath is eternal."

In the dark, the hunched-over man was visible as an outline of whiteness, his eyes practically glowing when he opened them. His body was still half-ruined, despite his companion's best efforts to set his bones and skin back into place after his humiliating loss. "Yeah, well...if we're gonna die because of Danzo's obsession, I'd rather die in the _snow_ than anywhere else. At least _then_ we'll be covered up quick."

"That's fine for _you_, Seshu, but I don't want to die _anyplace_." Cassy cut the chakra from her fingers, her strings losing their shape and drifting away. She shook her freezing hand distastefully, sneering as snowflakes got into her hair and eyes and made her skin cold and damp. She retreated from the mouth of the cave to move closer to her winded partner.

The explosion that created Truthseeker's Lake had ruined the land, and with it went the bodies all of the people who were still within range of its fiery power, save for two insignificant specks upon the scape of its obliteration. Seshu and Cassy were miraculously spared from the wrath of Mamban's last hurrah—his final insult to the world that had wronged him. Cassy had thought about that day a lot: "Do you think it was his _spirit_, or could it have just been luck?"

"Whose spirit?" Seshu asked half-heartedly as he bit into a partially-frozen apple that was scavenged from the lower, less violently-weathered regions that skirted the edges of the Land of Iron.

"Mamban's. I mean...there's no _way_ we should have lived if not for some kind of intervention, right? The man I used to love had clearly been gone for _years_, but...maybe there _was_ a small part of him left, a part that was finally freed and who used his last bit of will to keep us safe from his unleashed demons..." Cassy sat down in a huddle and shivered beside Seshu, who was pretty stingy with the food and warm clothes.

"Think what you want to think, Cass; we survived because of dumb luck." Seshu chewed on the solid apple, cracking a tooth when he struck a seed that was fortified by ice. He winced and pulled the apple away, wriggling his loosened enamel with the tip of his blueish tongue.

"_Dumb_ is right." Cassy rolled her eyes, looking out from the cave and into the abyssal light outside. Cassy thought that the world was scary—and that it had _always_ been scary. Men and women were out there who wanted to kill her, but at least she felt safe when she was underground. "I think that deep down, Mamban _did_ still love me. He loved _all of us,_ he just..._forgot_ about it for a while."

"Do you _mith_ him?" Seshu asked through a lisp as he refused to take his tongue down from his tooth before talking.

"No. I don't miss the man who died that day, but I _do_ miss the man he _could_ have been." Cassy sighed, rubbing her hands along her cheeks to make frictional heat and stay warm. "We should get moving; if one of them already found us here, then others will, too."

Seshu started to stand, but a twinge of pain in his ankle knocked him back to the stone floor of their hiding place. "Gah...not yet, I've already been running too much today." That, and he still hadn't fully healed from the brutal lashing he suffered at the hands of Might Guy.

Cassy sighed, shaking her head. "You used your mark too much...now your body's angry at you. Why not give it a rest for a while? You don't want to end up like _he_ did..."

Seshu held his arms out, flexing his fingers. "Fine, but if you want me to move, you're going to have to carry me. I honestly can't stand up."

Cassy rolled her eyes, then opened her right hand to create a complement of strings to very gently lift Seshu from the ground and drape him over her shoulders, legs straddling her hips from behind. "Alright, but don't grab my _chest_ this time."

Seshu smirked as he talked, his tone intentionally pathetic: "I must be the _only_ man you never flirt with; why's life so unfair?"

"_Disgusting_," Cassy said with a sneer. "You're like my _brother_..."

Cassy carried Seshu's laughing weight off into the heaving snow, the small black dot made up of their combined figures disappearing into the white-gray wilds.

...

...

...

_**THE END!**_

* * *

**So there you have it, folks! That's the story! I had a ton of fun while writing it, and the support I have been given in the form of follows, reviews, and favorites has been awesome! I appreciate everybody who has ever given the first chapter a chance; of course, knowing that some people have actually decided to spend their valuable time reading the _whole thing_ makes me positively giddy.**

**If you're ever going to leave a review, now's the time—there won't be any more chapters posted to this story. I don't know what I intend to do next, but rest assured that it will be something started up before too long. **

**Now that it's over, let me know what you liked, and what you didn't like; was it too long? Too short? Which characters did you like and which ones did you hate? Don't pull any punches, now's the time for an honest assessment! I look forward to knowing what you guys _really_ thought of it. **

**Until next time, I'm out!**


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